European Union Enlargement and Power Distribution in the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament: The Case of the Turkish Application

Abstract

Critics of European Union (EU) enlargement claim that new members could pose a serious challenge to the existing institutional balances within the EU and endanger future institutional deepening. Together with various enlargements since its inception in 1958, the EU has gone through numerous institutional changes that increasingly reflect its supranational character, although the European Community still contains intergovernmental elements. The most important dimension, which has evolved in this evolutionary process of the EU institutions, is the fine balance between small and large member states in terms of representation and power distribution. This is reflected, for example, in the European Commission, where the ten (relatively) small states are apportioned one commissioner and the remaining five large states two commissioners each.