Institutional & Bureaucratic Dynamics

Although the EC/EU has never had to advertise for members, one could postulate that in the past a certain amount of institutional or bureaucratic ‘drift’ existed at various times in respect of the issue of enlargement, particularly in terms of the wider implications of the intimate relationship between deepening and widening. As such, one could postulate that, on the one hand, perhaps in order simply to avoid ‘bureaucratic sclerosis’, and on the other, driven by the desire to maintain the holy shibboleths of integration theory, that the EU institutions themselves, and the Commission in particular, have at certain times sought to cajole the Member States towards opening up the Union to continual expansion. The institutions themselves then have thus acted as a subtle factor prompting evolution in this regard. We should of course stress that this has never been a major driving force in EU enlargement, but it is useful to consider this point nonetheless because it functions to remind us of the important role played initially by the Commission, and now also by the European Parliament, in the enlargement process, and in particular in respect of the accession procedures. In essence however this is a potential driver only in particular circumstances – such as when profound disagreement exists between the current members over the long-term goals of the Union as was the case between 1981-84 – and thus where the need for enlargement can be used to defray or redistribute the costs of such disagreements to prospective new members, or to reaffirm the status of the ‘integration project’ more generally. Similarly such an issue surfaced again as Prodi sought to ensure that the Western Balkans were, as a group, promoted from the antechamber of the Neighbourhood Policy to be given a full ‘entry perspective’ into the EU.