The Government and Politics of the European Union [antikvár]

Preface to the Third Edition So much has happened to Europe since this booic appeared in its second edition in 1991 that, as with the first edition, I have felt obliged to undertake a revision much earlier than ideally I would have liked. Again, this edition does not just consist of updating, although there is a great deal of that, but also includes a substantial amount of new material. Included amongst this new material are two new chapters: one on the much discussed and extremely important Treaty on European Union (TEU), and one on the increasingly significant area of external relations. A major problem in writing this third edition has concerned usage of the terms 'European Community' and 'European Union'. As is explained in Chapter 3, the Treaty on European Union (the so-called Maastricht Treaty), which came into effect in November 1993, created a highly confusing situation in this regard. It did so by incorporating what had come to be commonly known as the European Community into a broader European Union, and by renaming the European Economic Community -which was the most important of the three Communities which made up the European Community - the European Community! In other words, under the Treaty on European Union, the European Community is one of three European Communities, and these three Communities are component parts of the European Union. So as to try and keep confusion to a minimum, and so as to avoid repeated explanations in the text of my usage of terms, I have used the term European Union, and its acronym EU, wherever possible. Where, however, it would have been factually inaccurate to use EU, then EC or EC/EU are used as appropriate. As before, there are people whom I would like to thank for the assistance they have given me. Simon Bulmer, John Gibbons, Gary Titley MEP, and Vincent Wright all kindly read parts of the manuscript and made valuable observations on it. Steven Kennedy of Macmillan provided, with his customary deftness of touch, the necessary badgering until the book was completed. My wife Maureen produced a marvellous typescript whilst working to tight deadlines. Last, but not least, I must thank my daughters, Helen and Rachael, for being extremely tolerant when - all too frequently - the pressures of writing meant they were not given the attention they deserved. ]une 1994 Neill Nugent