This short introductory text de-mystifies the European Union's structures and operation. Blending scholarly expertise and practitioners' experience, the authors introduce and analyse the EU's key actors, processes and developments. The book's overall aim is to provide an accessible, livelyintroduction to how the EU works and why it matters.
Based on exhaustive research, this book explains how the European Union makes decisions in seven major policy sectors. Written in a clear, user-friendly style, it brings the EU alive for a student and non-specialist audience. The book's central themes are that informal norms often matter more than formal rules, agency often matters more than structure, and abrupt change often punctuates deadlock. It offers a theoretically-based introduction to the lively, humorous and fascinating politics of a unique experiment in modern governance.