Guide to the European Union

Guide to the European Union

The Final Adoption of the Treaty of Lisbon gives the 27-member European Union new momentum as it enters the second decade of the 21^st century, more that half a century since the six-member European Economic Community was established in 1957. That the countries of the euro area alone now account for a greater proportion of world exports of goods and services than the United States shows how far the EU has come and how, given strength and unity, it has the potential to provide a counterbalance between America and China.

This revised and updated edition of this much-acclaimed guide to the working of the European Union is invaluable for anyone who wants to understand how the EU developed, how it works and the challenges it faces. Included in its comprehensive coverage are:

• How the institutions and committees work both in theory and in practice
• Where the money for the EU comes from and where it goes
• Facts and figures about the bureaucracy
• The single market and what it means for business
• The effects and implications of monetary and economic union and the introduction of the euro
• How enlargement will change the EU and the political considerations that will determine which other countries join
• The implications of the Lisbon treaty
• Every sphere of EU activity from workers’ and women’s rights to fishing and farming

Now in its tenth edition, The Economist Guide to the European Union is well established as the most clear and comprehensive guide to how the EU operates. For everyone who lives and works in the EU – and for others who do business with EU countries – there is no better source of reference.

Dick Leonard has been writing on European issues for 30 years for The Economist, the Observer, Europe magazine, European Voice and leading newspapers across the world. A former assistant editor of The Economist, he has also been a British Labour MP and is the author or part author of some 20 books, including The Pro-European Reader, which he co-edited with his son, Mark Leonard. He has recerly completed a trilogy of books about British prime ministries – A Century of Premiers: Salisbury to Blair (2005), Nineteenth Century British Premiers: Pitt to Rosebery (2008) and Eighteenth Century British Premiers: Walpole to the Younger Pitt (2010).