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The ‘One’ and the ‘Fifteen’?
The Member States between procedural adaptation and structural revolution
in Fifteen into one?

Analysis of the fifteen Member States suggests that there are very heterogeneous interests in the policy domains of the European Union (EU). Looking at one major indicator for institutional change, the legal constitutions of Member States, the findings show again a modest rate of EC/EU-related revisions. Participation in European integration and the adaptation of the relevant and valid community law, the 'acquis communautaire', has forced the Member States again and again to make incremental amendments to their constitutions. However, an overview of the constitutional changes in the fifteen national systems reveals that the rate and the salience of changes at the European level has not been matched by analogous structural revolutions in the Member States. One major conclusion is thus: political and administrative strategies have in all states been geared to use existing constitutional and institutional opportunity structures and to improve forms of intra-state co-ordination.

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Fifteen into one?

The European Union and its member states

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