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The European Union summit in Nice could become a first step towards creating a vast and unified bloc stretching from the Atlantic, north to the Arctic and east to Turkey's East Anatolian borders. This ambitious vision will come true if the EU takes in the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the other countries waiting impatiently in the queue to join. At the Nice summit, leaders of these countries, including Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman, had a chance to outline their vision of the future united Europe. reports:

Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman arrived in Nice this morning for the start of a crucial European Union summit. Leaders of the Union's 15 member states have gathered in Nice for what is being billed as the most important summit since Maastricht: pessimists say if the EU fails to agree on crucial institutional reform, the whole expansion process could be thrown into doubt. But is the pessimistic forecast justified, or just media hype? RP's spoke to Ray Furlong, who has been covering the accession process in Central and Eastern Europe for the BBC

Now some good news for the Czech Republic's quest for EU membership. On Monday, Austria withdrew its opposition to the environment chapter necessary for EU expansion talks with the Czech Republic. Prague was forced to cancel EU accession talks on energy and the environment two weeks ago, due to Austria's boycott of both chapters over its opposition to the Temelin nuclear power plant. spoke to Daniel Kapp, the spokesman for the Austrian Environment Ministry, and asked him to give us the reason for this sudden change of heart from Vienna:

Moving on to international affairs now, and the Czech Republic has just become a member of the West European Armaments Group, the European Union's armaments body. The step opens the way for the Czech defence industry to compete in European markets, and also gives the country access to the latest military technology. reports:

The release on Wednesday of the European Commission's progress report, which ranks and analyses the preparedness of candidate countries for EU membership has met with mixed reactions from Czech politicians. The report placed the Czech Republic in a third group for membership, along with Slovenia, just after the second, comprising of Poland, Hungary and Estonia. Although the report noted that the Czech economy has improved and that progress has been made in adopting EU legislation, it made it clear that the EU has observed delays in industrial and

In an effort to allay fears about waning commitment on EU expansion, officials in Brussels on Wednesday unveiled a "road map" for frontrunners that, if followed, would open the Union's door to successful candidates at the beginning of 2003. But how do the people in other EU member states feel about the Union's early expansion? has this report:

On Wednesday, the European Commission made public the report which analysts have been speculating about for weeks. So is the Czech Republic any closer to membership in the European Union? has the details:

On Wednesday the European Union will publish its annual reports on the readiness of candidate countries for EU accession. In previous years, the Czech Republic's report card from the EU has had a few black marks, and although improvements have been noted since the Social Democrat government came to power in 1998, issues such as minorities and a lack of judicial system reform have come under fire. This year, though, the Czech government hopes for a good write up, claiming that much progress has been made since last year's report. Optimism within

There have been frequent complaints from the twelve candidate countries applying for EU membership, including the Czech Republic, that the Union has consistently failed to set a date for accession. Some EU representatives say this will happen in 2003, whilst others claim that 2005 is the earliest possible date; but all member states share concerns over the candidate states readiness to join the EU. But on Sunday, European Commission President Romano Prodi noted that he believed six countries--without naming them--would be ready to join the European