ABSTRACT
Globalisation and enlargement were the most recent challenges to the pat-
tern of governance of the EU. Globalisation was associated with a threat to
social democracy, as it was linked with pressures to cut back on welfare
spending and to have a more flexible workforce. The problems of the social
democratic states that formed the old core of the EU were one of the leit-
motifs of the anti-Europeans in states such as Britain. They argued that the
reluctance of France, Germany and Italy, as well as other Western European
states, to abandon their more generous welfare systems was a fatal barrier to greater economic growth. They were a handicap to the more dynamic
economies of the ‘reformed’ states. Enlargement was also a major challenge
to EU governance. It marked the end of the classic phase of integration in
the EU, in that it changed the principle of decision-making in the Council
of Ministers from consensus to outvoting dissenting minorities. The logic of
numbers in the enlarged Union indicated a need for this, as a greater
divergence of interests and economic and social circumstances made it
much harder to find consensus. But the form of the reforms remained unclear, and the possibility of operating other than by hard-won consensus
had yet to be demonstrated.
