Abstract

All the institutions of the EU have recently faced the challenge of enlargement which impact was not limited to the change in the number of officials present or languages utilised. The transformation called into question the capacity of the common institutions to resist in terms of the institutional identity and to absorb new members integrating them properly in the institutional structures and procures. The Committee of the Regions is distinguished among the EU institutions for an enormous variety of interests represented therein that has been often mentioned as an obstacle for the smooth and effective work of the institution. In this context, the process of enlargement that has increased substantially the CoR’s membership and made the diversity of interests even more rich, inevitably triggers the expectation of a growing degree of conflict in the Committee’s internal policy-making process. Our working hypothesis is that the enlargement has increased the level of internal conflict in the CoR and contributed to further split of interest and creation of new interest groups.

Contents

• Introduction
• The impact of enlargement on the CoR’s institutional structure
• The integration of new members into the CoR’s activities
• Overall conflict versus consensus in the policy-making
• Conclusions
• References