Enlargements and Their Impact on EU Governance and Decision-Making

The JCER is an open-access journal published by the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES) in association with the UACES Student Forum.

The JCER invites submissions from scholars who are experts in any subject area delivering analysis that relates to Europe. This includes, but is not limited to, Politics/International Relations, Area Studies, European Integration, Economics, Law, History, Culture and Learning & Teaching. The journal publishes the work of established academics alongside that of PhD students and early career researchers.Abstract:

This article examines the impact of enlargements on EU governance and decision-making, especially legislative decision-making. It is shown that all EU enlargement rounds, other than the first, have served to help improve the EU’s decision-making capacities, by promoting treaty and other changes that have made decision-making processes more efficient. The legislative outputs of the decision-making processes have declined in recent years, but this is for reasons other than enlargement.