The Union is founded on the values referred to in Article 2 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU), which include democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights. Those values form part of the accession criteria established at the Copenhagen European Council in June 1993 (Copenhagen criteria), which constitute the conditions of eligibility for Union membership.
Text as published in the Official Journal, reproduced verbatim (including any typographical quirks of the source). For the authentic version, see EUR-Lex.
