Books: ENLARGEMENT

Date: 04/01/01

Title: The EU in 2010

Author: Charles Grant

Publisher: Centre for European Reform

Published just as German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and French President Jacques Chirac were gazing into the EU's future, Grant's pamphlet provides a highly stimulating and often original take on the longer-term outlook for the Union. His EU in 2010 has 26 members, its economy is growing faster than the US, its joint armed forces have taken the lead in humanitarian intervention in the Balkans and Africa, and the Commission has merged with the Council of Ministers. But Grant could have done without sucking up quite so much to Gordon Brown, Anna Lindh and Elisabeth Guigou.

Title: Cyprus in Europe

Author: Jean-Francois Drevet

Publisher: L'Harmattan)

The island of Cyprus is one of the smallest countries currently applying to join the European Union but its membership bid is also one of the most politically complex.

Since Turkish troops occupied the north of the island in 1974, Cyprus has been split in two. United Nations troops posted along the 'green line' between the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish community in the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus try to keep an uneasy peace but violent border incidents are nevertheless relatively common.

Jean-Francois Drevet is a senior European Commission official and an expert on EU regional policy and enlargement. His meticulously researched book attempts to explain how the island's fraught politics are likely to have an effect not only on Cyprus' bid for EU membership but also Turkey's. The book is currently only available in French but an English translation will be available shortly.