The European Union Grows: The Constitutional Impact of the Accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden

This Article is intended to describe the constitutional impact of the 1995 enlargement upon the European Union. The first section situates the 1995 enlargement in its historical context. The second section sets forth the institutional changes produced by the 1994 Act of Accession and side arrangements. Next, the Article analyzes the principle of the acquis communautaire.

A fourth section describes the steps in the procedure leading to the enlargement. A final section is more speculative in character, reviewing the prospects of likely candidates for accession in the future and raising some of the institutional issues further enlargement would pose for the Union.