The course aims at providing the students with knowledge, understanding and historical interpretation of the process of European integration. The evolution of the institutional framework of the EC/EU and their policies will be critically analyzed through their different historical phases. The course takes into consideration the origins of European integration in the 1940s and 50s; the early problems faced by the EEC in the 1960s and the internal tensions of those years; the gradual progress of European politics through the years of international détente and the revival of European integration from the mid-1980s. The last part of the course analyses the development of the European Union from the Treaty of Maastricht to the Treaty of Lisbon, together with some fundamental topics related to the enlargement of the EU to the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Finally, the course gives a general understanding of the institutional architecture of the EU today.