The European Union and the Challenge of Enlargement

Abstract

The objective of the article is to assess the impact of enlargement on the evolution of the relationship between deepening and widening of the Community. The article deals with the enlargements of the 1970s and 1980s, the 1995 enlargement and the probable Eastern enlargement of the EU and how they affect the process of deepening of the Community. Having presented the evidence that widening has so far been accompanied by modest deepening via limited institutional reform which resulted in the eventual extension of the powers of the EC's institutions, it concludes by arguing that the future enlargements of the EU will succeed only if widening is reconciled with deepening in a Community model of differentiated integration.