Abstract
William Butler Yeats’ (1865–1939) words provide a fitting point of departure for a work about the European Union (EU) coming into being as a power with passions, needs and interests. Since 1999 the EU has gradually and purposefully developed a capacity to act: diplomatically, economically and, most importantly, militarily. It is in its ability to coerce that the EU departs from the ranks of international organisations and becomes something different, something with a ‘self’. The Union is a relatively young political entity, having found its economic, social and political form as late as 1992. The principal purpose of its first incarnation, the EEC, was to help foster economic prosperity in Europe. A second purpose, was to reduce the risk of war among European states by encouraging an indissoluble, economic interdependence among them, beginning with the heavy industries that were key sources of military power in the twentieth century. The third ambition, to act as a Union when dealing with the rest of the world, is little more than a decade old.
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Toje, A. (2010). Introduction and Basic Arguments. In: The European Union as a Small Power. Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230281813_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230281813_1
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