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International crises are events that develop suddenly in different areas around the world. These crises have different effects on countries. The European Union (EU), a supranational organization, was established in 1951 with the Paris Agreement and remains a gradually evolving structure to this day. In this process, the EU has a growing structure with both enlargement and deepening movements. As it advances its deepening, it also completes its institutional development within its own structure. In the almost 71 years of its existence, the EU has also been confronted with various global crises, which it has survived during this long period. These crises can sometimes be in security, sometimes in the area of economics, and sometimes in the form of a global epidemic such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic was first identified in China in December 2019 and quickly spread around the world. This pandemic, which is transmitted through human contact and respiration, quickly spread around the world and became a deadly virus. This situation caused panic in the world and forced countries to take various measures and methods to protect themselves from epidemics. Countries that made a serious test were faced with a deadly epidemic after a long time. At this point, the attitude of the EU, which has 27 member countries, is the main subject of this study. The study mainly aims to present the attitude of the EU toward different types of crises by briefly mentioning the global crises that the EU faced. Then, the strategies created by the EU, which faced a global epidemic for the first time, are examined.

The protection of the borders of the states, the entry of foreigners through the borders under certain conditions, helps to ensure internal security. Member states of the European Union (EU) are trying to protect the freedom and welfare area they have created within their borders by preventing the entry of migrants. The EU countries, which are generally insufficient in determining common policies, tend toward policies that vary from country to country on migration. However, it is seen that many policies and practices have come into force for the security of the Union's borders. In this study, it will be tried to examine how the borders of the Union are protected and controlled against the migrants coming to the Union countries.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the increasing need for digital solutions to maintain economic and social activities remotely. Times of physical distancing made it clear that besides keeping trade running, they are crucial for education, health, work, etc. During the pandemic, e-commerce has played a growing role in global economic activity as part of the wider digital economy. As social distancing and movement restrictions become normal, businesses and consumers have become increasingly digital and provide and buy more goods and services online.

The noteworthy development in this process is that much earlier than the pandemic, in 2015, the European Commission started developing a Digital Single Market strategy which is aiming at bringing distinctive digital markets together across the Union. The Digital Single Market is a modern version of the European Union (EU) Common Market established in 1957, which allowed the free movement of goods, services, capital, and people all around the region. The fact that such an application was started long before the pandemic provided some vital advantages to the countries involved in the strategy during the pandemic process.

This study is investigating how the EU Digital Market and the policy implementations connected to it helped digital transformation of the countries of the EU. Digital Economy and Society Index, and E-Commerce and internet access data of Single Market countries are investigated within the scope of the study. The data covering 2011–2021 period is collected from the Eurostat database. When we studied the data, although it is possible to talk about a benefit for the EU in general, less developed countries of the region benefited more from the process.

Relations between the European Union (EU) and African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) states date back to the 1960s. Brexit has also affected relations between the European Union and African-Caribbean and Pacific states. While the impact of Brexit on the EU is evident, the United Kingdom's exit from the EU has begun the process of renegotiation with African-Caribbean and Pacific states. The main objective of the study is to highlight the relationship between the ACP states, the United Kingdom, and the EU for the pre- and post-Brexit period. First, the historical process between the EU and the African-Caribbean and Pacific states was mentioned, and then an attempt was made to examine the consequences of Brexit for the United Kingdom, the European Union, and the related countries.

Russia's attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022, marked a very historic turning point in European security architecture. With enlarged Western aid in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, Ukraine could have overcome somehow the crisis, yet many of its cities and infrastructure were largely destroyed and one-quarter of its citizens are now refugees and displaced. What is even more serious is that it remains unclear if and how a diplomatic solution could emerge between the parties. Russia's war against Ukraine is not an overnight event, it is a part of the story of the gradual escalation of Russian aggression on Ukraine since the beginning of the 2000s. Indeed, it is not just the result of the ideological or geopolitical competition between the West/European Union (EU) and Russia regarding their mutually exclusive or even antagonistic integration policies in the shared neighborhood. It is a more dynamic process including the agency of Ukraine with all aspects of its domestic politics and societal features, ideology, the role of energy, business links as well as the impact of regional and global dimensions. This chapter aims to overview the interlinked relationship between the EU, Ukraine, and Russia in a triadic manner within key aspects including ideology, geopolitics, energy, and integration projects and by specifically focusing on the underlying factors that have triggered the emergence of the Russia–Ukraine war of 2022 and further implications for the EU politics.

European countries, which have many common policies and goals, are also having some disparities in their economic performance due to the existence of underlying country-specific reasons. The manufacturing sector is the key sector that promotes growth and increases the well-being of society. Thus, it is important to understand how these countries differ in engaging in industrial activities. Focusing on the manufacturing sectors of these economies, we aim to see the disparities between European Union (EU) countries in terms of their composition of manufacturing trade and the countries they are trading with. This chapter outlines some key stylized facts regarding trade over the past two decades by investigating the manufacturing data for EU countries.

The chapter analyses the anti-immigration political parties in the European Union (EU) as a challenge for the EU values such as human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law, and human rights. As the main constituents of the political groups in the European Parliament, the single elected body of the EU, the parties in the member states require a special scrutiny. In this context, the study aims at understanding and exposing how anti-immigration political parties in the EU discursively construct immigration as a threat. Taking into consideration their salient rise in the 2019 European election, it focuses on the discourses of the relevant parties delivered during the debates of the first half of the ninth (2019–2024) parliamentary term by using critical discourse analysis as its theoretical and methodological framework. The main argument of the study is that these political parties securitize immigration within three main discourse topics: immigration as a security threat, as an economic threat, and as a cultural threat.

The concept of sustainability started to be discussed in the twentieth century and lately has become an international concept for the social, economic, and environmental strategies and international agreements. In the path of sustainable development, green economics gained importance in international platforms. Sustainable finance includes environmental, social, and economic principles into decision-making processes, economic development, and investment strategies of the economic actors. The importance and volume of the use of green finance tools have risen in the last decades.

The 2008 financial crisis emerged in the United States. However, the crisis spread across other countries very rapidly. The European Union countries were also affected by the crisis. The uncertainties and the decreases in balance sheet assets observed in European countries complicated the discharge of debts of countries, which have more fragile structures, and turned the financial crisis into a debt crisis in the year 2010. The European debt crisis caused a significant pressure on the Eurozone, put the financial sector under stress, and expanded the gaps in capital budgets. In order to restructure after the crisis and to eliminate the effects of the crisis, many measures were taken, and various mechanisms were developed. As a result of the measures are taken and the policies implemented, recovery was seen in financial and economic indicators as of the year 2012, but the COVID-19 pandemic emerging in the year 2019 brought a new shock wave. As a result, it became necessary to review the economic and financial measures taken before, to add new ones to the current mechanisms, and determine and monitor the vulnerability of the system. For this purpose, in January 2021, European Commission declared that a new strategy was set. In the present study, the measures taken and the mechanisms developed after the 2008 crisis were summarized and the advancements in financial and economic variables were examined by making use of the statistical data. Moreover, also information about the new strategy set after the year 2021 was provided. It is projected that, in the long run, the consistent and uniform implementation of measures taken and ensuring the efficient functioning of mechanisms developed would strengthen the economic and financial structures of European economies, support the integration, and increase the competitive power.