Is the European Union more than a regional state-system?

The international order in Europe has gone through dramatic change during the last sixty years. It took two appalling wars at the beginning of last century for the continent's leaders to realise the dangers of nationalism and the traditional balance-of-power politics, with which it is often associated. Their response to the devastation of total war was to lay the premises for European cooperation, which today is institutionalised as the European Union. The extraordinarily long period …

…by 10 new countries later this year can change the course of integration to directions unpredictable with current knowledge. Bibliography: Cini, Michelle: European Union Politics, (2003) McCormick, John: Understanding the European Union: A Concise Introduction, (1999) Nelsen, Brent F; Stubb, Alexander C-G: The European Union: Readings on the Theory and Practice of European Integration, (1998) Wallace, William: Europe After the Cold War: Interstate Order or Post-Sovereign Regional System, Published in: Review of International Studies: Special Issue 'The Interregnum' Vol. 25, (1999)