The EU Institutions’ Interpretations of the States’ Europeanness: Discourse and Relevance in Light of the Recent Internal Events

According to Article 49 of the Treaty on the European Union, a state wishing to join the EU must be “European”. In other words, Europeanness is the first requirement for a state to be considered eligible for EU membership. Although written into EU law since the Treaty of Rome (Article 237 §1), the qualifier “European” has never been explicitly or institutionally defined, despite the fact that it may encompass geographical, cultural, historical or else political references. Yet, the EEC/EU institutions have had to interpret the states’ Europeanness, especially in the course of enlargements and membership applications. Relying on a textual and discursive analysis of recent documents and older records held in the Historical Archives of the EU in Florence, this paper investigates and analyses the various institutional interpretations that have been provided by the EEC/EU institutions by focusing on specific (formal and informal) requests that raised eligibility issues. Building on these interpretations, it then discusses the guidelines that they can provide for enlargements, as well as the relevance of these interpretations that may be jeopardized by the recent internal events that the EU has to handle, such as Britain’s withdrawal from the EU or the democratic issues in some eastern countries.