The World in 2025: How the European Union will need to respond" represents a significant contribution to
the policy-making process of the centre-right in European politics. It is a remarkable piece of work, drawing on the
efforts of a large number of people across the European Ideas Network - the network think-tank sponsored by the
EPP-ED Group to bring together elected political office-holders and advisers, academics, outside experts and
representatives of civil society.

The scenarios are presented as storylines which set out some general trends and
provide more detail in a number of areas:
■ economic and sectoral trends
■ employment and social trends
■ regional development
■ health, welfare and education
■ the environment.
A synopsis of key drivers and underlying assumptions is given alongside the storyline
for each scenario. In addition, Snapshot 2010, which can be found at the
end of this report, provides key performance indicators for each of the scenarios.

The scenarios presented here are based on two overarching strategic uncertainties, which
we have called “Governance” and “Ecological Footprint”. These are uncertainties that we
have deemed of the highest strategic importance in terms of their influence on the usage
of and impacts on the Baltic Sea. Thus trends and uncertainties provide the structure for
our exploration of the future.
Through an exploration of these trends on the directions that the Baltic region could go in