Central and Eastern Europe Soviet Union; the independent states in former Yugoslavia (which were not considered part of the Eastern bloc); and the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania (which chose not to join the CIS with the other 12 former republics of the USSR). The CEE countries are further subdivided by their accession status to the European Union (EU): the eight first-wave accession countries that joined the EU on 1 May 2004 (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Slovenia), the two second-wave accession countries that joined on 1 January 2007 (Romania and Bulgaria) and the third-wave accession country that
Asylum in the European Union Fund, which will be responsible for assisting Member States in the management of asylum applications. Chachipe a Roma rights organisation has criticised EU asylum policy that denies Roma from the former Yugoslavia asylum based on the "safe country of origin" doctrine, as they face discrimination in their home countries. 12 EU countries already have national lists of safe countries of origin. Asylum in the European Union Asylum in the European Union (EU) has its roots in the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, an agreement founded on Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Following the