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
History of the European Union since 2004 a range of proposals such as a European Monetary Fund or federal treasury. History of the European Union since 2004 The history of the European Union since 2004 was a period of significant upheaval and reform following the 2004 enlargement of the European Union. The EU had just taken on ten new members, eight of which were much poorer than the EU average, and took in a further two in 2007 with many more on the way. It had just created the euro a few years before and had to expand this, and the Schengen Area to its new members.