EU Membership: Formal and Substantive Dimensions

AbstractMembership is central to the EU, as it is to any other international organisation. Withdrawal has assumed centre-stage through Brexit. While there is literature that is relevant to membership, most notably through academic discourse on differentiated integration, there is little more general inquiry concerning membership, the concept of which has importance and implications over and beyond more particular avenues of scholarship. This article examines the formal and substantive dimensions of membership and withdrawal in the EU.