Apart from peace, what has the EU done for us?

The good citizens of the EU do not seem to care about peace and prosperity - that at least appears to be the conclusion to be elicited from much of the commentary surrounding the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome. From surveys to opinion pieces, it appears that the basic success of the EU is taken for granted and as such dismissed as a given right.

This depressingly doubting tone is beginning to sound increasingly like the radical in Monty Python’s ‘The Life of Brian’, mounting a case against the Romans: "Apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order…what have the Romans done for us?"

The list could as easily apply to the EU, with the added extras of open borders, liberal democracy, international trade and a single market. And then, of course, there is peace. Unfortunately this too is identical to the film, since the radical’s response, when reminded of this minor Roman achievement, is: "What!? Oh... (scornfully) Peace, yes... shut up!"

Peace, like health, tends to be taken for granted - until it is jeopardised or disappears. To this extent it is a credit to the EU that its citizens ignore its most obvious success, since the attitude could be seen as a sign of health. But the credit can only go so far since unlike health, the EU does not have a proper policy to insure against many risks and most threats.

This situation did not evolve by chance: since Europeans were traditionally each other’s worst risks and threats, the aim of the EU was to provide a comprehensive security policy against each other. All six of the original signatories of the EU treaty had either started wars or been badly affected by wars created by their neighbours - a description that fits every state that has since joined. This harsh fact is true not only to the last two centuries, but over millennia. In other words, the EU has not only brought 50 years of peace - but the first 50 years of peace in the area known as Europe.

For much of these years the obvious success of the policy was ignored since a collective threat loomed over all: the Soviet bloc with its nuclear missiles. But with the end of the Cold War the success was further ignored: peace had broken out, Russia became a friend, enlargement became a priority and the notion of threat - and even risk - was consigned to the rubbish bin of history.

This process is usually known as Europe taking the ‘peace dividend’ - a phrase uttered with a variety of emphases: in awe by those who wish the EU to deal only in ‘soft power’; somewhat defensively by politicians who wish to defend the shrinking defence budgets and inadequate security plans; and derisively by the US, seeking to galvanise Europeans into using more ‘hard power’.

Given its history, it is no bad thing that such a debate exists: it is better for Europe to consider carefully, even if that means a bit slowly, before it decides what or who are its risks and threats. But it must begin to make such assessments more quickly and pragmatically, and decide who is to deal with them: the EU or NATO. For it is clear that in the age of non-state threats it is not in the remit of an individual state to act alone - nor should it be in the interest of Europeans, even if most of them think peace is available to all on the cheap.

As long as Europeans act in concert on defence and security, they cannot act against each other. That has been the astounding success of the EU to date, and that must be its mission looking into the next 50 years.

• Ilana Bet-El is an academic, author and policy adviser based in Brussels.

The good citizens of the EU do not seem to care about peace and prosperity - that at least appears to be the conclusion to be elicited from much of the commentary surrounding the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome. From surveys to opinion pieces, it appears that the basic success of the EU is taken for granted and as such dismissed as a given right.