European Union representation within those institutions, a practice often referred to as "pooling of sovereignty". To become a member, a country must meet the Copenhagen criteria, defined at the 1993 meeting of the European Council in Copenhagen. These require a stable democracy that respects human rights and the rule of law; a functioning market economy; and the acceptance of the obligations of membership, including EU law. Evaluation of a country's fulfilment of the criteria is the responsibility of the European Council. No member state has yet left the Union, although Greenland (an autonomous province of Denmark) withdrew in 1985. Article 50 of
Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic The Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (; , "Bashkirskaya Avtonomnaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika"); also known as Soviet Bashkiria or simply Bashkiria was an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Russian SFSR. Currently it is known as Bashkortostan. Bashkir ASSR was the first Autonomous Soviet Republic in RSFSR. The republic occupied an area of in the far south-eastern corner of European Russia, bounded on the east by the Ural Mountains and within seventy kilometers of the Kazakhstan border at its southernmost point. The region was settled by nomads of the steppe, the Turkic Bashkirs, during the