Abstract
It is consensual in the literature on European construction, from the Schuman Plan of 1950 to the Next Generation Plan of 2020, that among its greatest achievements has been the establishment of a lasting peace in Europe, closing the record of internecine conflicts that precipitated the disasters of two World Wars. Since 2020, however, a major war has broken out within Europe once again: in the Ukraine, one of the classic battlefields of both World Wars, where armies of the Central Powers and the Entente, of the Third Reich and USSR, confronted each other in bitter fighting. How far does the present war across the same plains represent a completely new departure, historically speaking? Alternatively, are there any analogies of significance with events either of the second or of the fifth decade of the last century? The closure of the long continental peace since 1945 signals a quite new challenge in the trajectory of European construction. How far is it likely to offer an opportunity to build not only a wider, but a stronger and deeper European Union?
