POLITICAL SCIENTISTS HAVE ARGUED AND WRITTEN AT LENGTH on theories of integration and their application to the European Communities, in particular whether its development sùpports the tenets of functionalism, neo-functionalism or inter-governmentalism, and how far each of these theories has lain behind the Community's progress. Whatever views may be held on this, one feature of the European Communities is undeniable and that is its basis of parliamentary democracy. In fact, a system of government involving responsibility to a parliament elected by direct universal suffrage, is perhaps the only indispensable criterion for membership of the European Communities. Negotiations may take place to cope with economic, social or demographic diffiulties, often very considerable in countries applying for membership, but if the applicant is not a parliamentary democracy, as this term is understood in Western Europe, then in practice negotiations cannot even begin. This is illustrated by the attitudes which have been adopted by all the Communities’ institutions and member-governments towards the applications of Greece, Spain and Portugal first to become associated with and later to join as full members. These applications were only considered after dictatorships in each of the countries concerned had ended.