The EU is the Answer to the World Wars

This week citizens across Europe celebrate the end of the Second World War on 8th May and the 65th anniversary of the Schuman declaration on 9th May that led to the foundation of the European Coal and Steel Community, the first of a series of supranational European institutions that would ultimately become today’s European Union.

The European Union was and is the answer of Europe to the war. The still today modern message was: "war never again, dictatorship never again". Despite all problems the EU has fulfilled this dream. Therefore, the peace noble prize is justified. The oxford historian Christopher Clarke has said that even the First World War would not have happened if the EU would have been in place at that time.

The Schuman Declaration proclaimed that the European Coal and Steel Community would be “the first concrete foundation of a European federation” but also warned: “Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity”.

Elmar Brok, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the European Parliament and the longest serving MEP, declared: “Today, 65 years after the Schuman Declaration, the project of a European federation envisaged by Schuman is not yet completed. We must continue towards that goal without hesitation, aware of the divisions and war that tormented Europe before integration began. But we should also strive for intermediate concrete achievements. Today, the two concrete projects Europe should work on to make a quantum leap in its integration are an economic and fiscal union to complement the monetary union and a European security and defense”.

European Federalists will also celebrate Europe Day across Europe. In Europe they will participate in the EU open doors events at the Solidarność Esplanade of the European Parliament in Brussels on the 9th of May.