ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to explore some of the major problems and challenges on the EU’s current agenda. Its aim is to give the reader a sound understanding of what these problems are, and why the European Union continues to face serious difficulties despite 50 years of success. As a consequence, the chapter is not an examination of a range of policies in microscopic detail. Instead, it looks at the ‘big picture’: the EU system itself, and some of the most salient issues that the EU currently needs to address, such as democratic reform and managing enlargement to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. It explains why certain important issues are particularly problematic for the Union and shows how issues of money and sovereignty explain the continued presence of these problems. In this way, the reader will be able to get to the heart of the EU’s ongoing reform process, and develop an understanding of the principal challenges on the EU’s current agenda.
