WIDENING NOUN (POLITICS)

In relation to the EC: the policy of extending membership of the Community to more countries (possibly including the countries of Eastern Europe). Etymology: A specialized use of the figurative sense of widening, adopted by analogy with deepening (see below). History and Usage: A word which has been used especially in connection with the debate over European integration in the second half of the eighties, and is often presented as the opposite approach from the Delors plan for EMU° (otherwise known as deepening). A person who favours widening in the Community is known as a widener. Some of the wideners have gone to the other extreme, arguing that the Community must now abandon much of its cohesion...There is no need for widening to conflict with deepening. Indeed, every widening has brought more deepening. Independent 13 Dec. 1990, p. 22