The European Union – A Critical Report

In its first part, this study deals with some issues that have amassed within EU, practically in all fields of activity, especially after the last wave of enlargement, thus the fears of deepened distance between EU and its population being brought up to light. EU undergoes an identity crisis with multiple facets: geographical, socio-economic, moral, ideologic, and strategic ones, etc. The main goal of EU for the last three decades is no longer population welfare, but “competitiveness” , and the chief means of increasing it is production costs’ diminution that occurs by massive layoffs and wage decreases. EU enlargement and in-depth processes have created new issues such as enterprises relocalisation, immigration, social protection system, and foregoing the chance to dominate the world. The second part analyses the consequences related to the turmoil within EU: co-existence of welfare and poverty (increased unemployment, growth of discrepancies between countries); massive absence at the latest polls; lack of confidence in political personalities; risks of enlargement without previous operated in-depth changes, etc. Despite its flagrant shortcommings it is less probable that the EU would dissolve. It amassed a lot of red-tape (bureaucracy) and embodied so many interests, so that the most likely development seems to be an even greater enlargement, until it will become completely ineffective. The single means of improving EU is that populations become aware of the other side of the medal.