History of the European Union

[14] But also other polities of Europe have established, independently from Rome and Byzantine, their European realms, such as a range of pre-Roman or pre-Christian Greek, Germanic, Celtic, Slavic and Hungarian powers, Khanates, or Al-Andalus and the Sicilian Emirate.

[15] In 15th century, King of Bohemia George of Poděbrady proposed the Treaty on the Establishment of Peace throughout Christendom which sought to end military conflict between Christian kingdoms of Europe.

[17] In the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle of 1818, Tsar Alexander, as the most advanced internationalist of the day, suggested a kind of permanent European union and even proposed the maintenance of international military forces to provide recognised states with support against changes by violence.

"[24] During the same decade, the Austrian Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, in light of the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire, imagined as one of the first modern political unions of Europe, founded the Pan-Europa Movement.

As French prime minister, Nobel Peace Prize laureate for the Locarno Treaties and follower of the Paneuropean Union Aristide Briand delivered a widely recognized speech at the League of Nations, the precursor of the United Nations,[26] in Geneva on 5 September 1929 for a federal Europe to secure Europe and settle the historic Franco-German enmity.

This was expanded on by the 1941 Atlantic Charter, establishing the Allies and their common goals, inciting a new wave of global international institutions like the United Nations (founded 1945) or the Bretton Woods System (1944).

[33] On 19 September 1946 in a much recognized speech Winston Churchill reiterated his calls since 1930 for a "European Union" and "Council of Europe", at the University of Zürich.

To ensure Germany could never threaten the peace again, its heavy industry was partly dismantled (See: Allied plans for German industry after World War II) and its main coal-producing regions were either awarded to neighbouring countries (Silesia), managed as separate directly by an occupying power (Saarland)[36] or put under international control (Ruhr area).

[37][38] Though by 1947 a growing rift between the western Allied Powers and the Soviet Union became evident as a result of the rigged 1947 Polish legislative election which constituted an open breach of the Yalta Agreement, followed by the announcement of the Truman Doctrine on 12 March 1947.

On 4 March 1947 France and the United Kingdom signed the Treaty of Dunkirk for mutual assistance in the event of future military aggression in the aftermath of World War II against any of the pair.

The rationale for the treaty was the threat of a potential future military attack, specifically a Soviet one in practice, though publicised under the disguise of a German one, according to the official statements.

Immediately following the February 1948 coup d'état by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the London Six-Power Conference was held, resulting in the Soviet boycott of the Allied Control Council and its incapacitation, an event marking the beginning of the Cold War.

With the start of the Cold War, the Treaty of Brussels was signed in 1948 establishing the Western Union (WU) as the first organisation, followed by the International Authority for the Ruhr.

In the same year, the Organization for European Economic Co-operation, the predecessor of the OECD, was also founded to manage the Marshall Plan; the Eastern Bloc responded with establishing the Comecon.

[citation needed] It has since been a broad forum to further cooperation and shared issues, achieving things like the 1950-signed European Convention on Human Rights.

On the basis of that speech, France, Italy, the Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg) together with West Germany signed the Treaty of Paris (1951) creating the European Coal and Steel Community the following year; this took over the role of the International Authority for the Ruhr[37] and lifted some restrictions on German industrial productivity.

The potency of the Marshall Plan caused former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt to remark in 1997 that "America should not forget that the development of the European Union is one of its greatest achievements.

[52] After much negotiation, and following a change in the French Presidency, Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom (with Gibraltar) eventually joined the European Communities on 1 January 1973.

In 1982, Greenland voted to leave the Community after gaining home rule from Denmark (See also: Special member state territories and the European Union).

The opening of a border gate between Austria and Hungary at the Pan-European Picnic on August 19, 1989 then set in motion a peaceful chain reaction, at the end of which there was no longer a GDR and the Eastern Bloc had disintegrated.

Otto von Habsburg and Imre Pozsgay saw the event as an opportunity to test Mikhail Gorbachev`s reaction to an opening of the Iron Curtain.

[58] But with the mass exodus at the Pan-European Picnic, the subsequent hesitant behavior of the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany and the non-intervention of the Soviet Union broke the dams.

[69] In the following elections, the Socialists lost their decades-old majority to the new People's Party and the incoming Prodi Commission was quick to establish the new European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).

With Greece struggling to restore its finances, other member states also at risk and the repercussions this would have on the rest of the eurozone economy, a loan mechanism was agreed.

[87] On 1 July 2013, Croatia joined the EU, and on 1 January 2014 the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte was added as an outermost region.

[93][94] Likewise, neighbouring EU member countries received a mass influx of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the conflict over the course of the first weeks of the war.

Despite the diplomatic efforts of all members of the European Union, in 2024, the conflict in the Middle East detonated with dramatic repercussions and further geopolitical tensions.

Iran is the mastermind of the destabilizing action of the entire Middle East, having created a group called the Axis of Resistance against Israel, which responds with the destructive power of its army.

A challenge that places Europe in front of new choices of collaboration and opportunity that requires an unprecedented effort to maintain competitiveness as illustrated in Mario Draghi's report.

[106][107] Multi-speed Europe is a concept of differentiated integration currently in operation that has recently been given renewed emphasis by a team of independent experts[108] in a report presented at a council meeting in Brussels in September of 2023.