ABSTRACT
Within the European Union, small political units proliferate and adopt varied institutional formulas. Two thirds of the member states of the Union are small units with less than 10 million inhabitants. At the same time, the five larger states, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Spain, plus two others of intermediate size, Belgium and Austria, are federal or increasingly decentralized states. In total, more than 70 non-state small political units with legislative assemblies and executive governments exist within the territory of the EU. In other states there are powerful municipal governments and other territorial administrative structures.
