In January 2007, The World Today ran a series of articles marking the European Union’s 50th anniversary and launched an essay competition in which high school pupils were asked to imagine the next 50 years of the EU. Sophie Paterson, who was one of the winners, wrote about the future upheavals that were in store for the EU:
The Europe we know today has spent the last half century forming, defining and more recently expanding the frameworks of free trade and democracy … Yet this prosperity that we so take for granted may well be threatened in the face of future events seemingly beyond our control.
