"Concentric circles" at the periphery of the European Union

After World War II when the governments of several European states attempted to form supranational groupings, colonial obligations posed problems that persist to this day. The article traces immediate postwar history, outlining the present relationship between the EC institutions and what remain of member-state Empires, before proceeding to two case studies. The first concerns the ramifications of 'Euroland' in present or past dependencies after European Monetary Union. The second considers the role of European dependencies in military alliances and analyses how one of the founding Treaties was used in the mid-1990s after the discovery that it applied extra-territorially. The conclusion is that the external border of multi-speed Europe is even more variable than it might otherwise be because of the attachments some member states retain to colonial remnants.