This article analyzes the evolution of staff representation in the 10 EU member states that joined the EU in 2004, using the theory of representative bureaucracy. It examines the various levels of staff employed in the main EU institutions—the European Commission, European Parliament, and the Council of the EU. Naturally, some member states enjoy better representation in these institutions than others. The so-called geographical imbalance, a phenomenon that has been targeted in the past, however, remains unresolved.

By utilizing data from the institutions at various staff levels, we aim to understand the developments in staff representation and identify trends between 2004 and 2022. Furthermore, this article seeks to uncover and systematize the incentives, causes, and actions that can address this issue in countries, particularly with the recent action plans that aim to target the problem of geographical imbalance in countries that are underrepresented in the EU institutions.

This paper contributes to the debate on the systemic impact that EU enlargements may have on the duration of the legislative process. Two methods – interrupted time series analysis (ITS) and survival analysis (the Cox model) – are utilized to reveal effects of enlargements. The empirical data consists of EU secondary law directives and regulations. Our dataset excludes implementing acts because the adoption of legislative and implementing acts has considerable differences.

We analyzed the effects of 1995 and 2004 enlargements. The methodology and research design allow to disentangle the impact of enlargement from the effects of Treaties reforms and from the influence of other institutional and structural parameters of the EU decision-making process. First, we included in our model a set of control parameter, that reflects basic factors, influencing the duration of decision making. Second, we developed two models to check the influence of Treaties changes. The model 1 deals with the entire dataset. For the model 2 we refined the dataset from the documents that are based on treaty articles changed respectively by the Maastricht and Nice treaties.

Practically identical results of models 1 and 2 demonstrate that the impact of the Maastricht and Nice treaties on the duration of legislative process was negligible, at least within our study period.

As for the 1995 enlargement, the low reliability of calculations allows us to only state very cautiously that it did slow down the decision-making process.

As for the 2004 enlargement, the findings demonstrate that the legislative process has significantly accelerated at the moment of the enlargement. The results have high statistical accuracy both for all acts (Cox & ITS) and for directives and regulations separately (ITS).

We discuss potential reasons of acceleration of legislative process like the effects of trilogues, changes in consensual practice in the Council etc. We conclude that the most possible cause is the fine-tuning of working methods in the Council. Most likely, new Rules of Procedure of the Council, that have been approved just before the enlargement, significantly improved the efficiency of the Council and had a positive impact on the duration of the legislative process.

Our research reveals that the linkage between the number of MSs and decision-making speed is not unambiguous. Institutional parameters exercise significant influence on the EU decision-making process. Whereas researches usually concentrate on big changes like basic Treaties reforms, we discover that minor changes could have a more profound impact.

The last 30 years of European integration have led to the rise and consolidation of the European administrative space (EAS). This dynamic space has witnessed the rapid emergence of sectoral bodies such as European Union (EU) agencies and European Regulatory Networks (ERNs). The proliferation of these entities plays a pivotal role in enhancing the administrative capacities of EU institutions for the application of EU law, for regulators from EU member states and third countries associated to the EU acquis alike. Third country access to EU agencies and ERN fuels a transgovernmental layer of external "technocratic integration". In this context, understanding the interactions between EU agencies and ERN and the centripetal effects of these organizations on third countries is fundamental. However, despite the pivotal role played by these organizations in the wider regional integration process, the integration of third countries therein has remained relatively understudied. This paper aims to address this gap by delving into the intricate relationships between EU agencies, ERNs, and third-country integration into the EAS. Based on a unique dataset of third country participation in EU agencies and associated ERN, we explore the link between third country access to EU agencies and their participation to ERNs. Using a robust analytical framework that combines network and regression analysis, we argue that participation to ERNs encapsulate the role of an antechamber to European integration more effectively than third county access to European agencies. This paper contributes to a comprehensive examination of the evolving dynamics within the EAS, shedding light on the often-overlooked role of third country in the technocratic layer of European integration.

The paper discusses a unique case of the EU’s application of rule of law conditionality vis-à-vis Ukraine, while the latter is in active war with Russia. It is demonstrated that the EU utilized momentum, created by the confluence of the invasion and Ukraine’s EU candidateship, to apply ambitious rule of law conditionality in its relations with Ukraine. Despite the unique strategic and political context, such conditionality is found to be of path-dependent nature, strongly relying on the achievements and outstanding tasks of the EU’s pre-war rule of law promotion in Ukraine. Both the design and substance of EU conditionality vis-à-vis Ukraine also strongly resembles the one the EU applied vis-à-vis Western Balkans. Current geostrategic pressures thus have not yet led to major changes in the philosophy behind the enlargement process and the EU’s application of the RoL conditionality, broadly conceived. Yet, changes to be underscored include the EU’s focus on specific benchmarks within pre-defined realms and strong alignment between political and financial instruments.