Ukrainian flags in front of the EU parliament building, Brussels, Belgium, February 2023
Yves Herman / Reuters Over the last six decades, no part of European integration has been as transformational as the gradual enlargement of what is now the European Union. The EU’s expansion brought democracy to places that knew only authoritarian rule. It turned what was a perennially conflict-ridden continent into one of the most prosperous regions in the world.
From the beginning, the number-one aim of integration was to reconcile France and Germany, which had fought three wars within less than a century. To do so, the two countries tied together their steel and coal industries in July 1952—the symbols and substance of
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