The accession of eight post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (and also of Malta and Cyprus) to the European Union in 2004 has been heralded— rightly—as perhaps the most important development in the history of European integration so far. European enlargement and the resultant “coming together” of the two parts of Europe raise a number of crucial questions about the operation of constitutionalism, democracy and the rule of law at both the European and the national level