ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the empirical paradox involved in EU enlargement: the obvious development of the original European Communities to a Union with important supranational features has by no means discouraged aspirant member states. It analyses the internal implications of the developments, and examines the indispensable institutional and policy reforms to accommodate further widening, and the changes in the Union's pre-accession strategy over time. Contradicting the suggestion that European integration is a zero-sum game, researchers have focused on European integration as a reaction to general economic and political trends, providing rather beneficial effects for national polities, in particular for governments and their administrations. The west European welfare states have reached a new stage of development, in which they can no longer independently meet increased welfare provision due to increased internationalisation of economies. The question of diversity in structure and political ambitions has made the subject of differentiation within the project of European integration a major issue of the Intergovernmental Conference 1996.
