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
Model European Union Strasbourg and 10 March 2007 and has grown ever since. Residents of any of the 28 Member States of the European Union, EFTA , EEA countries and Turkey, Macedonia and the Erasmus + Partner countries (Western Balkans, Eastern Partnership Countries, South-Mediterranean Countries, and the Russian Federation) between the age of 18 and 26 are eligible to apply to take part in Model European Union Strasbourg. Such criteria are to maintain the project's goal of youth inter-European learning and networking. All applications are done online via the website. Model European Union partners up with other (youth) organisations which among others include different