This book reflects the proceedings of the conference on the Institutional and Constitutional Dimensions of European Integration, asking the question - will the European union meet the challenges of the 21st-century? The conference was held on 6 and 7 November 1997 on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Europa Institute of Leiden University. The congress has resulted in a collection of contributions. Together they not only reflect the significance, the positive outcome, the deceptions and the unfulfilled expectations of the Treaty of Amsterdam, but they also constitute a stocktaking of the European Union as a whole. The contributions of the seventeen authors in this volume differ in their approach to the current State of the Union. Some contributions are highly political in nature, as one might expect from a former President of the European Parliament (P. Dankert) or from a former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (Lord Howe).