The EU is vital to Peace in Europe
Background
Twenty-five years ago some of our EU partners were still communist dictatorships housing nuclear missiles pointed at Britain. Today they are democracies, embracing values of freedom and justice that we, as Liberal Democrats, have long championed. Britain should be proud of the contribution it has made to shaping EU values, and be determined to find shared solutions to our common problems.
History has shown us that Europe has been the planet's most violent continent: Today, this truth is almost forgotten, a testament to the remarkable change in Europe's internal relations after 1945. Until that point, war was a perpetual fact of European life.
How did this change?
Put simply, European countries systematically cancelled their own motives for war.
Ten institutional peace promoting mechanisms were identified that dispelled the mutual belligerence in Europe, creating permanent peace.
Putting the European Union together, getting the countries of Western Europe to settle their differences peacefully was nothing short of miraculous.
10 Peace Factors made war unthinkable in Europe; these were:
- Enshrined Democracy and Rule of Law
- Economic Truce
- Open Borders and Human Ties
- Soft Power and Shared Values
- Permanent Discussion, Dialogue and Diplomacy
- Financial Incentives and Support
- Veto and Consensus Building
- Resistance to External Interference
- Rules, Human Rights and Multiculturalism
- Mutual Trust and Peaceful Coexistence
Conclusion
These 10 factors prevented inter-state conflict during the latter half of the 20th Century by defusing specific flash-points in Western Europe. These included the territorial dispute between Spain and the UK over Gibraltar; the dispute between the UK and Ireland over the six counties of Ulster; and secessionist movements in Spain, Belgium and in Scotland.
The framework that delivered these 10 mechanisms is today the European Union. The EU grew out of smaller and less ambitious regional bodies such as the European Coal and Steel Community and then the European Economic Community. The 10 principles for peaceful existence swiftly accreted around these structures and they provided a template for other continents to follow.
The success of the European Union has been in establishing a 'positive peace'. This kind of peace is established when different nations, groups of people or organisations become so vested in the interests of one another, and dependent on mutual cooperation, that the prospect of conflict becomes remote to the point of impossibility. In a remarkably short length of time - Europe has peace and cooperation where before there was conflict and cynicism. It is also worth emphasising that Britain has played a key role in all of it.
Europe is peaceful and we need to remember how novel that is, why it is an achievement and, most importantly, what led to it being so normal that we don't even question it any more. Namely, it is the structures, organisations and processes of the European Union and Britain's role in all of those, and why it is so important that we remain IN.