The events of recent years show: the European Union has not brought its members the promised prosperity and growth, and therefore needs fundamental changes. The euro, instead of solving pressing problems, has become a headache itself. The EU's share of global GDP is doomed to plummet. Increasingly, there is a lack of understanding of how to reconcile the idea of an “ever closer union” with the desire to expand borders, the enormous differences in culture and income levels of member countries. “This book offers readers a balanced and accessible overview of the development of the European Union and explains what problems are facing the EU today. It is addressed to all those people in Europe who, wanting to form their own opinion about the EU, look for information, but often find only outright nonsense from activists of opposing Eurosceptics and Europhiles, as well as endless collections of obscure statistics and a lot of obscure Eurojargon.