The widening-deepening dilemma of the EU in the post-cold war period

The European Union is one of the important actors of the global system today with its 27 members, its deep organizational structure and its unique integrated system. The subject of this thesis is the widening process of the European Union in the post-Cold War international climate and the deepening dilemmas experienced in the EU integration due to this process.The EU's enlargement to the Central and Eastern European countries after the Cold War has brought new problems to the agenda of the Union, different than the integration experiences before the 1990s. While the number of the EU member states and the EU's geographical size doubled after this widening, the necessity to restructure the Union's economic and political unity has emerged. These two essential differences have created conflicts in the Union's common policies and controversy in its decision-making organization. In order to remove these conflicts and conclude the controversies, reforms have been made.The transformation appeared in the international system with the end of the bipolar world as the Soviet Union dissolved has paved the way for the transformation of European Communities. European Communities have been transformed into the European Union by combining their budgets and executive authorities with the Maastricht Treaty. The European Union, that was formed by the Maastricht Treaty, was restructured through the Amsterdam Treaty in 1999. With the emergence of the widening-deepening dilemma of the EU in its most concrete form, the negotiations have started to solve these dilemmas. After the Nice Treaty became ineffective, the last reform for the widened Union was made in 2009 with the Lisbon Treaty.The aim of this thesis is to examine the EU widening-deepening dilemma from the perspectives of the reforms brought about by Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon Treaties.