with the costly unification of Germany and the prospect of a new pool of indigent applicant-states from Eastern Europe, the generous precedents of the Mediterranean accession years would prove burdensome and controversial, as we shall see. The bigger it grew, the harder the European Community was to manage. The unanimity required in the inter-governmental Council of Ministers ushered in interminable debates. Decisions could take years to be agreed—one directive on the definition and regulation of mineral water took eleven years to emerge from the Council chambers.
