Look at Some Late-Breaking [1] News Stories about the European Union.

In Cousins and Strangers, Chris Patten, one of Europe’s most distinguished statesmen, argues that America’s status as the only superpower must be reined in, but he also warns Europe against too ardently challenging U.S. leadership. Drawing on more than three decades of experience in government and international diplomacy, Chris Patten investigates the relationships among Britain, Europe, and America and how all three must adapt to cope with the economic and political challenges of the twenty-first century.

Check out Provocative Articles Analyzing the EU.

• Limitations on Religion in a Liberal Democratic Polity: [2] Christianity and Islam in the Public Order of the European Union.
• It’s the old Right that’s full of hate: The most potent bigots in Europe are not Muslims living in run-down housing projects, but [3] white Christians in the corridors of power.
• Europe is taking not just a post-national form, but also a [4] post-western shape.
• [5] Superlocal identities: A look at how European youth culture no longer blindly follows the US template.
• A summit to nowhere: What the Lisbon and Brussels [6] summits say about today’s Europe.
• Nine new EU countries will join the border control-free group known as Schengen; preparations have been underway for months, but [7] will European security suffer?
• Brussels rules OK: A look at how the European Union is becoming the world’s chief regulator.
• From Der Spiegel, an [8] interview with Timothy Garton Ash: “A clear European voice is missing in the world”.
• [9] Promises countries make to gain entry into NATO or the EU are similar to Mary Poppins’s description of pie crust: Easily made, easily broken.
• Richard Falk on [10] Turkey’s finest hour: The sick man of Europe gets a jolt of life, but will it last?
• [11] Five myths about sick Old Europe.
• Archipelago Europe: Instead of two homogeneous European regions — “the East” and “the West” — there are now [12] fragments, enclaves, and islands.
• Despot dilemma: The European Union seems unable to decide [13] how to deal with dictators.

See what the [14] Bloggers are Blogging about the European Union.

The [15] Foreign Policy Association Recommends Some Controversial New Books about the Future of Europe for its Great Decisions Series.

• [16] The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy, by T.R. Reid, traces the EU’s emergence from the ruins of World War II and its influence everywhere from international courts to supermarket shelves, and explores the challenge it poses to American political and economic supremacy.
• [17] The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent, by Walter Laqueur. What happens when a falling birthrate collides with uncontrolled immigration? The Last Days of Europe explores how a massive influx from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East has loaded Europe with a burgeoning population of immigrants, many of whom have no wish to be integrated into European societies but make full use of the host nations’ generous free social services.
• [18] America and Europe after 9/11 and Iraq: The Great Divide, by Sarwar Kashmeri. American foreign policy toward Europe is merrily rolling along the path of least resistance, in the belief that there is nothing really amiss with the European-American relationship that multilateralism will not fix. Not true, argues Kashmeri. The alliance is dead, cannot be fixed, and must be renegotiated.
• [19] The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God, by George Weigel. Paris’s modernist La Grande Arche de la Défense and the Gothic Cathedral of Notre-Dame serve as metaphors for papal biographer Weigel’s examination of what has happened to Europe in the last several decades and its significance to Americans. Weigel, an American Catholic theologian who has lived and worked on the continent, defines the “Europe problem” as the sharp divergence of European views on democracy, the world and politics from those held by Americans like himself.
• [20] Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century, by Mark Leonard. Those who believe Europe is weak and ineffectual are wrong. Turning conventional wisdom on its head, Mark Leonard, one of the UK’s most visionary thinkers, argues that Europe is remaking the world in its own image.

Visit Some Excellent Websites about the EU

• Brooking Institution’s [21] Center on the United States and Europe is dedicated to U.S.-EU relations and engaging experts in research, analysis and debate.
• [22] EUROPA, the portal site of the EU, provides up-to-date coverage of the Union’s affairs and essential information on European integration
• [23] EuroBarometer reports on public opinion in Europe