Europe's economic slowdown is unlikely to dissuade the successful applicant countries that have got this far.

ECONOMIST: Growing and slowing | The

The applicant countries, for their part, are hoping that membership of the euro will provide them with an extra economic boost.

ECONOMIST: A survey of European Union enlargement

Naturally, the applicant countries insist that they too should be allowed to roam freely inside the Union as soon as they join.

ECONOMIST: A continent on the move

There is talk among some applicant countries of regarding the Brussels deal as merely an opening position for the final stage of the accession negotiations.

ECONOMIST: Sowing trouble | The

Full membership will not change the applicant countries' economic prospects immediately.

ECONOMIST: A survey of European Union enlargement

Applicant countries would do better to form mutual-assistance alliances among themselves.

ECONOMIST: No to NATO expansion

And it has fewer farmers and coal-miners clamouring for subsidies, as they do in most of the other applicant countries (Cyprus, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Estonia).

ECONOMIST: Slovenia

Diplomats from the applicant countries wore long faces in Amsterdam.

ECONOMIST: Mountains still to climb | The

The applicant countries have bitter experience of such experiments.

ECONOMIST: Europe's constitution

Even assuming that the negotiations can be completed by 2002, the treaties would still have to be ratified by every parliament in the Union, and would be subject to referendums in many of the applicant countries.

ECONOMIST: The EU summit

The accelerator invites entrepreneurs from all over the world to enroll in its annual Massachusetts-based startup competition, which in 2010 attracted applicant startups from 26 countries.

WHITEHOUSE: Office of Science and Technology Policy Blog