ABSTRACT
Even a cursory examination of constitutional changes in Central and Eastern Europe reveals several commonalties in overall institutional design. The prevailing institutional model involves parliamentary democracy, a proportional representation electoral system, multiparty systems, coalition governments and constitutional review. During the last decade several applicant countries have shifted towards this pattern, even if their constitutions and electoral laws originally provided for some forms of mixed types of government, such as semi-presidentialism and mixed electoral formulae. The adoption of the West European institutional model has been helpful in the process of democratic consolidation in CEE countries by promoting the necessary values and habits such as selflimitation, bargaining, reciprocity and feedback.!
