Many years ago when studying European integration at the College of Europe in Bruges, one of the professors organised a trip to the battlefields of Flanders of the First World War. The day seemed a little like a school outing, but with the relentless rain falling in the former trenches, the lesson was well taken. One of the main aims of integration was to render war in Europe not only inconceivable, but ‘materially impossible’. Today, despite tensions in areas such as the divided Cyprus or Northern Ireland, in the EU we tend to take this success almost for granted. One of the aims now is to extend this achievement to other less stable areas of Europe such as the former Yugoslavia.

Of the many experts working on East-West studies, few predicted the collapse of Communism in 1989. Right from the start of transition the Central and Eastern European countries wanted to join the integration process. At first the European Community seemed rather unprepared and overwhelmed at the prospect, but after a long and difficult process of preparation, in 2004 much of Europe was again ‘reunified’.

European integration has therefore a strong political impetus, but the method of implementation has been primarily economic. The first successful initiative was the European Coal and Steel Community created in 1951, while in the early years of the European Economic Community (EEC) the main progress was in trade and agriculture (though the policy mechanisms chosen for the latter can be criticised). Numerous studies suggest that the Single Market Programme introduced from 1985, and bolstered in many member states by the euro, has fostered trade and other closer economic ties between countries.

The book is aimed mainly at students of economics, European studies, business, political science and international relations. Though the approach is grounded in economics, the aim is to provide a multidisciplinary account of EU integration. The debate about whether the EU is primarily an economic or political entity is of long standing, but the view here is that in order to understand the process of integration a combination of economics, politics and history is necessary. The textbook is intended to have a strong policy orientation.

The objective has also been to organise the material in a flexible way so it can be directed at different audiences. For this reason the theory has been concentrated in Chapters 4 and 5 and in separate sections in other chapters. Omitting Chapters 4 and 5, and the theoretical sections, the book can and has been used in various courses where the students have little or no economics background. The aim has also been to write chapters that stand individually, and can be used independently from the rest of the book. A basic introduction to the EU could cover Chapters 1-3, Chapters 6-9 and Chapter 20. Depending on where the reader comes from, this could, for example, be supplemented with Chapters 17 and 18 or, in the case of US students, Chapters 18 and 19. Those interested in individual policies can select from Chapters 10 to 16. A course on the external relations of the European Union could use Chapters 17 to 20. The intention has been to permit the use of different combinations of chapter depending on the needs or interests of the reader.

The EU is evolving constantly, and though every effort has been made to ensure that the text is up-to-date, more recent developments are necessarily covered by the OLC website of this book.

Because each chapter has been written so that it can stand independently, the aim is also to provide a text that can be consulted by researchers or policy makers. For this purpose each chapter sets out references for further reading and relevant websites.