During his keynote speech at the Future Force Conference, the Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans stated that: ‘French and Germans, Dutch and Belgians, Danes and Swedes, French and English, […] all fought each other on the bloody timeline of European history’, and claimed that the EU is the ‘most successful peace project in human history’.

Is he implying that, were it not for the EU, fighting would resume between Denmark and Sweden over Scania, Germany and France over Alsace-Lorraine, and the UK and France over Gascony?

The US has also had a violent part to play, waging war against the English, French, Spanish, Germans, Austro-Hungarians, Italians, Bulgarians, Hungarians and Romanians. Yet no one is suggesting that it should become a member of the EU in the name of peace. In fact, what unites the US and Europe is membership of NATO, together with trade, shared values and democracy.

Why, therefore, does the Commission insist on calling the EU a ‘peace project’ when it is clear that it is NATO that has made by far the greater contribution to keeping the peace between these historical rivals?

Furthermore, in its quest for political integration, the EU has not brought about unity but has fomented new divisions. Consider the current animosity between the northern and southern Eurozone Member States, for example.

If the Commission truly believes in peace and fraternity then why will it not just abandon its crusade for a United States of Europe?