The Routledge Guide to the European Union

Written by experts, this long-established and definitive guide to the workings of the European Union provides comprehensive, straightforward and readable coverage of this sometimes misunderstood and complex institution. It explains not only what happens but also why, and analyses the EU’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities for it to be more effective. With the EU’s very existence under pressure due to fiscal crises and the Eurozone, migration and borders, and Euroscepticism, it specifically it outlines:

• How it works: the institutions, the mechanisms

• Every area of EU competence from agriculture to workers' rights

• The effects of the single market and the single currency and the successes and stresses of the euro zone

• The impact of the enlargement of the EU and the prospects for further enlargement and for closer political integration

• detailed and non-partisan coverage

Principal changes for the new edition

• New chapter "The EU under strain - the 2008 recession and after

• New chapter ‘Britain in or out’

• Fully updated and revised with new data, statistics and examples

The Routledge Guide to the European Union is well-established as the clearest and most comprehensive guide to how the EU operates. This new edition brings you up to date at a crucial stage in its history at a time when, arguably, it has never been under greater threat, but conversely is perhaps more important than ever.

Dick Leonard is a journalist, author and former Labour MP. He was a foreign correspondent in Brussels for nearly 30 years writing, primarily, about the European Union, for leading newspapers around the world. A former Assistant Editor ofThe Economist, he is the author or part-author of over 20 other books, including most recently,A History of British Prime Ministers: Walpole to Cameron. He has taught at the Universities of Essex and Brussels (ULB) and has made five lecture tours to leading American and Canadian universities.

Robert Taylor is a senior Brussels-based journalist, a former head of the Reuters’ office in Brussels, and for many years the EU correspondent ofThe Economist. He is now the Head of a leading research organisation, European Research Associates (ERA).

Both have many decades of experience at penetrating and comprehending the inner workings of the EU.