The objective of the article is to assess the impact of past and future enlargements of the European Union (EU) on the development of federalism within the EU in its historical, current and likely future context. After briefly considering the problems of defining federalism and establishing a number of key criteria on which the impact of various accessions on the popularity of federalism can be judged, the article then applies these criteria to past and future enlargement phases. The final section summarizes the evidence and argues that, in practice, enlarging the EU has incorporated a majority of `dissident' members who are resistant to the development of a federal EU and that, to some extent, intergovernmental tendencies have been reinforced. Its general conclusion is that a multi-speed EU, with a hard core essentially based around the original six (and more federal inclined) founding members is looking an increasingly likely scenario for the future.
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