Oh so now the EU led us out of a world war. I thought world war 2 ended in 1945. The European Economic Community (EEC), or ‘Common Market’ was created in 1957 as a result of the Treaty of Rome. We along with Ireland & Denmark joined the EEC, or ‘Common Market’ in 1973. The EU as we currently know it started in 1993 with the signing of the ‘Maastricht’ Treaty (the 'four freedoms' of: movement of goods, services, people and money) and the EU subsequently starts to act together in relation to security & defence matters. Hardly dynamic leadership. The Americans led Western Europe out of world war 2 and Russia led Eastern Europe and I would suggest that NATO, the United Nations and nuclear weapons did much more to preserve peace in Europe than the EU did, particularly in the time between the end of the war and the falling of the Berlin wall in 1989 and its immediate aftermarth. Indeed you could argue that the EU only became interested in Europe's security when America became unwilling to continue its huge contribution in terms of troops and resources. Whilst the self serving political elite may have unified across Europe, they certainly haven't taken the people with them. At present if anything the EU as it currently is, is doing more to divide Europe than anything else. If we stuck with the initial idea of a common market the current situation, I think, would have been very different