ABSTRACT
Regionalism had its origins in Western Europe at the beginning of the 1950s. It is from here that the basic concept has been transposed into Africa, the Middle East, East Asia, South Asia, North and South America. Regionalism in Europe has been largely identical throughout the last 40 years with the European Economic Community and its successive constitutional offsprings, in particular the European Union since the Maastricht Treaty (1993). It is the dialectic inter-action between these which constitutes the key to the European Union's (EU's) success. The European regional system is a system sui generis and open-ended; it defies conventional constitutional definitions. Since its creation in the 50s, the European system has been subject to permanent adjustments and enlargements. The EU has progressed in stages, by focusing on long-term objectives to be realised, in small steps, during long transition periods. Whatever the pragmatic nature of the European integration process, it would not have worked successfully without firm legal foundations.
