Instytucja państwa stowarzyszonego w systemie prawnym Wspólnot Europejskich – Unii Europejskiej

A treaty of association is a bilateral international agreement concluded between the European Union and a concrete individual state, whose aim is to develop mutual relations of the economic and political character. The first association agreements related exclusively to the economic sphere. Later they started to permeate other spheres, including political ones. Along with the evolution of the regulations of treaties of association, signing of such an agreement began to be perceived as one of the stages on the road to a state’s membership of the EU. Apart from this, the group of non-European states affiliated with the EU includes the following: overseas countries and territories, states of the Mediterranean Basin, African states, those of the Caribbean and the Pacific. The main goal of the association is to form lasting mutual relations which allow existence of a defined type of relations between the Community – currently the European Union – and a state which is not its member. In other words, association is one of the forms of the external activity of the European Union.