On 25 April 2005, at Neimënster Abbey in Luxembourg, the EU member states, Bulgaria and Romania sign the Treaty of Accession 2005 — the act opening the way to accession on 1 January 2007.

The European Parliament had given assent on 13 April; the Council accepted the applications on 25 April, the same day as signature. The depositary is the Italian Government; languages cover the EU’s 21 official tongues plus Bulgarian and Romanian.

The Treaty has six articles: accession as members, the link to the Constitutional Treaty (which never entered into force) and the Act/Protocol on conditions of admission. A Final Act records negotiation results and party declarations.

Romania ratified on 17 May 2005 (joint chambers, 434–0); Bulgaria on 11 May. All 25 member states deposited instruments by 20 December 2006.

The Commission could have proposed postponement to 1 January 2008; the May and September 2006 monitoring reports nonetheless recommended accession on schedule, with the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism for justice and corruption.

For Romania, the Luxembourg signature remains the legal moment of the European “contract”; Georgi Parvanov’s pen is kept at Bulgaria’s National History Museum in Sofia.

The Treaty of Accession of 25 April 2005 remains the act that made Romania and Bulgaria the EU’s fifth enlargement wave.

Image: Luxembourg; Wikimedia Commons. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: Treaty of Accession 2005. Treaty text: Treaty of Accession 2005 (EUR-Lex).