ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the empirical findings about the decision-making in the European Union, EU Council immediately after the first eastern enlargement of the European Union. It elaborates briefly about the possible relevance of these findings for the question of the decision-making rule for the Council. It brings findings and few hypotheses for further research based on the results of a project that aims at creating a database of proposals on which the Council on the ministerial level took decision after the first eastern enlargement. The eastern enlargement brought change to the pattern of decision-making in the European Union. The large member states ceased to be the main opponents to the change of the policy status quo, replaced by medium-sized and new member states. The chapter concludes the findings which are still preliminary and awaiting study that is more thorough and theoretically embedded, it still may establish some inference and formulate hypotheses, which may lead the future research.
