The Report on the State of the European Union examines the progress of European integration and focuses on economic aspects of the process. This second volume in the series explores the four crises of contemporary Europe, those of growth, trust, inequalities and unity.

This volume is the fourth instalment of the 'Report on the state of the European Union' series. Its shows that if the EU does not want to be ruled by crisis any longer, it must invest in sustainability, political, economic, social and environmental. Europe must turn this elusive and ever-threatening 'crisis' into a chosen and meaningful transition.

The time has come to open a lucid debate on the ways and means to make Europe better deliver democracy and sustainable growth. The Report on the State of the European Union examines the progress of European integration and focus on economic aspects of the process. This volume explores the themes of: democracy and legitimacy, convergence and cohesion, macroeconomic policies and social integration. the report is written in an accessible way and will be a useful resource for academics, students, policymakers, journalists, and government advisors.

Against the backdrop of combating the financial and economic crisis in the European Union for the past decade, this volume strives to explore the manifold impacts the prevailing crisis management has on the further alignment of European Integration. The efforts targeted at overcoming the financial and economic crisis evoked far-reaching consequences on the societal, economic, and political level within European member states, which in turn challenge the institutional alignment, democratic legitimacy and economic coherence of the European Union. Taking into account current developments in the EU, the contributions presented in this volume focus on the ‘fault lines’ in the integration process, i.e. questions of policy coherence, democratic accountability, financialization, militarization, migration, gendered social and economic asymmetries as well as the rise of populist and extreme right-wing parties. The volume focuses on how these different developments come together by relating aspects of transdisciplinary research to uncover the fault lines in the European integration project in the subsequent chapters. ContentEconomic and Democratic Governance • Right Wing Populism and Right Extreme Parties • Financialization and Militarization • Social Exclusion, Welfare and Migration Policies EditorsProf. (FH) Dr. Stefanie Wöhl, University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna. Prof. (FH) Dr. Elisabeth Springler, University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna. Mag. Martin Pachel, University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna. Dr. Bernhard Zeilinger, University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna.

The sixteenth edition of Social policy in the European Union: state of play has a triple ambition. First, it provides easily accessible information to a wide audience about recent developments in both EU and domestic social policymaking. Second, the volume provides a more analytical reading, embedding the key developments of the year 2014 in the most recent academic discourses. Third, the forward-looking perspective of the book aims to provide stakeholders and policymakers with specific tools that allow them to discern new opportunities to influence policymaking. In this 2015 edition of Social policy in the European Union: state of play, the authors tackle the topics of the state of EU politics after the parliamentary elections, the socialisation of the European Semester, methods of political protest, the Juncker investment plan, the EU’s contradictory education investment, the EU’s contested influence on national healthcare reforms, and the neoliberal Trojan Horse of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

This volume is the fourth instalment of the 'Report on the state of the European Union' series. Its shows that if the EU does not want to be ruled by crisis any longer, it must invest in sustainability, political, economic, social and environmental. Europe must turn this elusive and ever-threatening 'crisis' into a chosen and meaningful transition.