1986 enlargement of the European Communities

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Spain and Portugal acceded to the European Communities, now the European Union, in 1986. This was the third enlargement of the Communities, following on from the 1973 and 1981 enlargements. Their accessions are considered to be a part of the broader Mediterranean enlargement of the European Union.^[1][2]

Both countries had been under dictatorships until just over a decade prior to the accession, with Spain under the military dictatorship of Francisco Franco, and Portugal under the corporatist dictatorship of the Estado Novo. This had meant that, whilst both countries had previously had relationships with the Communities in some form or another, they were ineligible to become members. The mid-1970s brought the death of Franco in Spain, and the Carnation Revolution in Portugal, which rapidly pushed both countries towards democracy. Membership talks began with both countries a few years later.

Spain and Portugal acceded to the Communities on 1 January 1986.^[3] The accession took place without any official ceremony other than the raising of the Spanish and Portuguese flags in Brussels, after a period of more than six years of negotiations between the Communities and the two countries.^[4] The accession talks were particularly prolonged by concerns over the Spanish fishing fleet, which was larger than the entire Community fleet put together, as well as severe governmental turbulence in Portugal, where several governments collapsed and one Prime Minister died in an aeroplane crash during the negotiations.

Some scholars at the time predicted that increased competition from Europe would lead to economic problems for Spain and Portugal; however, in the years since, both countries' economies have benefited overall from the accession. The enlargement is also credited by some with helping to stabilise the fledgling democracies of both countries, as well as speeding up the decolonisation of the Portuguese Empire; whilst there is broadly consensus that membership played some role in these processes, there remains debate as to whether membership was the deciding factor in these changes, or whether it merely contributed.