The European Union - History, Purposes and Aims

The European Union is best understood not as an economic project that acquired political ambitions, but as a peace project that chose economics as its instrument. In 1945 Europe lay in ruins, and the people who built it had a clear diagnosis: the recurring catastrophe was nationalism — the conviction that nation-states are entitled to pursue their interests against each other by force. Their cure was integration. If you bind countries' economies together tightly enough, war between them becomes not just undesirable but materially impossible.

From a modest start binding together the raw materials of war, the logic extended to more and more areas over the following decades: a common market, then a single market, then a shared currency, and eastward expansion after the Cold War.

This session will be led by Luca.

Bring wine/beer/drinks/food/snacks/whatever to share.

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Press the buzzer marked Semi sotano 2 to be let in. It's down the stairs, first door on the right.

Image: Kohl and Mitterand in Verdun (1984)