The European Union and the Eurozone Under Stress

This book explores the political and economic issues currently challenging EU member states. It analyses and explains how its own economic, and political, relationships have been critically influenced by fierce competition from its rivals in other major global economies, as well as by the systemic weaknesses in the economic and financial model it created.

Chapters provide insight into both the underlying and more immediate economic and social challenges in the EU created by its post-2007 enlargement to 28 countries; the nature of the regulatory regime centralized in Brussels, and the host of issues and critiques this fosters; its ‘open borders’ policy and precious guiding principle, crystallized in the Schengen agreement; security weaknesses exacerbated by increasing volumes of migration; and the ongoing debt crises as the greatest existential challenge to the EU project. Featuring interviews with high profile key players from inside and outside Europe the book will examine new and underlying stresses - political and economic - to guide a greater understanding of the EU plan.