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Throughout 2012, the EU and the world have been faced with a series of challenges that required immediate and sustained responses: from tackling the economic crisis to promoting democracy, stability and prosperity in the Union's neighbourhood and other parts of the world. The General Report describes a year full of significant events, both in Europe and beyond. One of the highlights was the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union for its deep and abiding commitment to peace and the rule of law ever since its foundation.
2012 was also marked by a solid EU response to the economic and financial crisis with the establishment of the permanent European Stability Mechanism (with a firepower of €500 billion), a new Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union (the so-called Fiscal Compact) now in place, and with the agreement on a Single Banking Supervisor laying the first building blocks of a banking union.
The year in review was also marked by a renewed debate on the future of the Union, on the deepening of economic and monetary union and on how the EU might move towards a deeper political union.
The text is divided into six chapters: