More than most other areas of the law, EC law demands to bestudied in the wider social and economic context. All students of the basic principles of EC law must be aware of the momentous changes taking place in Europe and must recognize that the law is an instrument for the achievement of grand designs. This book seeks to equip the student of EC law with a rangeof materials relevant to the development of the Community and its policies. In addition, it provides a selection of themajor judgments delivered by the Court since the 1960s and some of the most important pieces of Community legislation with which the student will need to become familiar. This fifth edition remains faithful to the format of the previous edition, but it now describes the Community within the broader structure of the Union as adjusted by the Treaty of Amsterdam, which entered into force in 1999. It also includes an up-to-date examination of recent changes in fields such as competition policy and the maintenance of the internal market, and traces the impact of the principle of subsidiarity and of notions of 'flexibility' on the legal order.