Summary

How did the process of European integration break down; how can it be repaired? In European Integration, 1950-2003, John Gillingham reviewed the history of the European project and predicted the rejection of the European constitution. Now the world's leading expert on the EU maps out a route to save the Union. The four chapters of this penetrating, fiercely-argued and often witty book subject today's dysfunctional European Union to critical scrutiny in an attempt to show how it is stunting economic growth, sapping the vitality of national governments, and undermining competitiveness. It explains how the attempt to revive the EU by turning it into a champion of research and development will backfire and demonstrates how Europe's great experiment in political and economic union can succeed only if the wave of liberal reform now under way in the historically downtrodden east is allowed to sweep away the prosperous and complacent west.