Intellectual society, knowledge economy and cohesion processes in the European Union: new challenges and priorities

New challenges and priorities of social and economic modernization processes in the context of European integration and enlargement of the European Union are analysed in this theoretical article. Main attention is paid to the intellectualization of society in the social, economic and cultural space of the European Union, especially to the processes of knowledgebased society and knowledge economy creation, as well as to the cohesion processes in the European Union. It is shown that the creation of a knowledge-based society and knowledge economy could be described as the main direction of the processes of intellectualization of the society and of the societal life in the social, economic and cultural space of the European Union. Cohesion processes as an especially important factor of the processes of intellectualization of society and societal life, as well as of the processes of European integration and enlargement of the European Union are analyzed. The needs of cohesion and possibilities to activate cohesion in the context of general processes of European integration and of the further enlargement of the European Union, as well as in the context of the creation of a knowledge-based society and knowledge economy, are discussed. This article raises and considers the problem of intellectualization of society and of societal life, the problem of social, economic and political development, cultural changes, the new tendencies of technological progress and environmental protection , closely associated with the cohesion processes, taking place under the conditions of European integration and the European Union’s development and enlargement. It is shown that the cohesion processes determine the basic changes in contemporary society and its life in the common cultural, social and economic space in the European Union