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In this timely and clearly written text, John Van Oudenaren traces how the original six-member common market evolved into the fifteen-member European Union (EU) with its vast array of policy responsibilities. Providing an accessible overview of the institutions, laws, and policies of the Union, he chronicles its emergence as a global economic power. The author argues that the federalist aspiration to create a United States of Europe has died but that the drive to union persists in other forms. In the coming years, the EU will be challenged by a daunting agenda that includes completing EMU, implementing enlargement, enacting institutional reform, facing instability in Russia and the Balkans, and coping with more mundane but nonetheless serious problems such as unemployment and social inequities. Finding ways to cope with this agenda will force European governments and political leaders to reinvent the Union for the twenty-first century. Visit our website for sample chapters!