First i wanted to make a thread to welcome the new members in the EU, but then i thought that it would be too limiting so i'm making this a European Union general discussion thread.
I'm old enough to have lived under the cold war and when i was a teenager we used to live with the fear that we could be at war with the Eastern block anyday. I would have never tought that one day some of those countries would actually join the EU.
I also happen to live in a region, Normandy, that paid a heavy price to WWII. The biggest city, Rouen, where i live was destroyed at 20% and the second and third biggest cities were destroyed at 90% (by the allied ironically), it cost heavy civilian casualties and we have French, German, British, American, and Canadian military cemetaries everywhere with thousands of tombs to remind us what a butchery it was.
I'm starting with that because that is the first and main reason the European Community which later became the European Union was created. To prevent a new European civil war, because that's what WWI and WWII are! European civil wars that spread to the entire planet. Europeans had been used to live with regional wars between European states for centuries, but after WWII they realized that the level of destruction had just gone too far and that if there was ever a new continental war, there would be nothing left. France and Germany alone had been at war three times in 50 years, it had to stop.
So the European Community was created and even if it has many flaws, it has succeeded in its main goal: continental peace. Not a single armed conflict between the member states in over half a century, it's actually the longest period of peace that this part of Europe has known since the Roman Empire!
Today the European Union is expanding to the East and that's making me extremely glad. I know that those new members mostly see the EU has an area of economical wealth. Of course that's an essential part of what it is, but i wanted to remind here that the original goal of the EU is to maintain continental peace. Let's never forget that because Europe has known too many wars for us to say that it will never happen again. It could happen again if the EU was to collapse one day.
But i'll stop there. Today is to celebrate the historical day that finally saw the reunification of Europe.
Welcome to all the people of the new EU member states.
