Re: Good article
"except the EU has existed for less time than the peace in Europe has"
Well a European union wasn't going to spring into being fully formed the day after VE day, the nations of Europe had to recover. Infrastructure had been broken, cities flattened, refuges everywhere, two countries (Austria and Germany) under military occupation.
But the concept of a union to prevent war was already there. Churchill gives 1946 speech "United States of Europe " leads to Council of Europe 1949, the European Steel and Coal community (1951) leads to Treaty of Rome in 1957.