Thoughts for the new Europe

When I studied history at school, one of the challenges on examination day was to remember all the international treaties that had resolved political situations in Europe. These treaties were usually the consequence of long and bitter wars between neighbours and often re‐coloured the political map. Sometimes they solved conflicts, such as the Peace of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years War in 1648. Sometimes the winning party wrote the rules and merely legalized the preceding land grab, and sometimes they carried the seeds of new conflict, such as the Treaty of Versailles that ended the First World War.These days, most international treaties are made on the basis of an economic impetus, and it can be difficult to recognize the profound changes they carry with them because they take place peacefully. On 1 May 2004, at the stroke of a pen, 10 new countries joined the existing 15 member states of the European Union. There have been no preceding wars, and the political dividend may be as important as the economic consequences. To put it into perspective, it is akin to the expansion of the USA in the 1800s, when most of …