ABSTRACT
Throughout the changing contexts of European integration it has been commonplace for both academic observers and active practitioners to argue that Community institutions are in urgent need of overhaul.1 Chapter 4 looked at the original institutional structure of the Community, carrying it forward to 1986 to take account of the first three series of enlargements. It was possible to do this because that institutional structure remained – at least in a formal sense – largely unchanged until the Single European Act (SEA) of 1986 and the 1992 Treaty on European Union. In the twenty years which elapsed between the treaty which merged the institutions of the three communities and the SEA, the only significant formal structural change resulted from the ‘own resources’ treaties which gave Parliament significant additional powers and as a result tilted the balance slightly between the major institutions. By way of contrast, direct elections of the Parliament did not immediately change the power balance. During this time, however, a number of extra-treaty institutions or arrangements emerged – Council Presidency, Council Secretariat, European Political Co-operation, European Council. These developed iteratively, but they all had a considerable impact on how the Community worked in practice. They were only brought under the formal legal structural umbrella by the SEA and the Treaty on European Union.
