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
Country separate countries—the Faroe Islands, and Greenland—which are almost fully internally self-governing. The Kingdom of the Netherlands, a sovereign state, comprises four separate countries: Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten. Although not sovereign states, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are countries (depending on context), which collectively form the United Kingdom—a sovereign state that is commonly, but erroneously referred to as a country. The United Kingdom is a Union of four separate countries brought about by a series of International treaties and legislated for by several Acts of Union, the first of which being the Acts of Union 1707 in both