Warning: This post is totally off topic, but some of you have asked about why the Brexit is so important, so this is why I am posting this. I will try to keep it non political to keep with the DIS rules. However, of course there is some opinion in putting out what I believe to be relevant facts and I hope that is still fine. Keep in mind that this is my personal interpretation and I have many friends who think the same way, but of course I am not speaking for the German people as a whole, as in every country there are various opinions. But I think my opinion is not a fringe one and is shared by many.
I would not be your stereotypical German if I would not start with history. I am recently reading a very interesting book by a Dutch author about the USA. And one thing that he points out is that the USA is a country that has no history of war within its territory. And I think to a large extent that is true. European history in contrast is filled with wars. Real wars that took place all around the Europeans. Armies marching here and there. Some countries were more hit then others. Poland for example was ever changing borders and distributed again and again between the Russians, the Prussians and the Austrians. Not every country was always involved, but there was plenty of fighting happening. Remember, the whole area of the European Union is smaller than the United States and is filled with different countries with different traditions, languages and religions (well, mainly Catholic and Protestant, but those managed to do quite some fighting between themselves during history). This all culminated finally in World War I, which essentially started out as a European War and ended with 17 million people dying. However, the outcome of WWI was not one to bring peace to Europe. There were ideas on how to restore peace, but for a number of reasons things did not work out and we all now what came next: World War II. (Not going into the reasons for why that happened as that would be too much for this post.)
So, after yet another war that devastated most of Europe things had to change. This time about 80 million people died, of which about 20 million were from the former Soviet Union (the numbers about estimates vary highly about this, but all are in this ballpark. This does include civilian people). Whole cities were destroyed to nothing.
This is the background behind the European Union. Among the EU member states there has not been any war in Europe since 1945, that is 71 years of peace. Yes, European countries have taken part in arm conflicts for all kind of causes. But they have not taken up arms against each other. And that is more or less unprecedented in European history.
What happened? There were a million ideas of how to deal with the question of how to prevent another European war. Obviously the big problem was Germany which had started both WWI and WWII. One idea was to more or less split Germany up into smaller independent countries and kind of de-industrialize it and make it countries where people were only farmers and such. But with the advent of the Cold War, it was considered advantageous to have a stronger Germany (then only West-Germany as the Eastern part of Germany was occupied by the Soviet Union and hence under their control). The solution was however, to put Germany into a strict corset of international control. Between 1949 when the Federal Republic of Germany (what you would know as West Germany) was founded and 1990 Germany was actually not a really independent state with full sovereign rights. Until 1990 the occupying forces (USA, Great Britain, France and Soviet Union) still were around.
One big problem was considered to be Germany's heavy industry as steel means the ability to build weapons. Germany's heavy industry was mainly located in the Ruhr area and use before the Federal Republic of Germany was founded, the Western occupying forces moved the oversight over that area to an international body. Then in 1951 the European Coal and Steel Community was founded by France, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Italy, which then too over the oversight of the Ruhr area. With this Germany was finally part of the body that was in charge of its main industrial area. But not on its own, instead working together with 5 other countries. Then in 1957 they added the European Economic Community to further work together on economic issues and the European Atomic Energy Community. These three communities together were also called the European Communities, sometimes just European Community in short.
So, the idea was working together for a common good: i.e. helping all member states to develop economically and tackle all the issues of rebuilding after the war as well as helping each other to increase the standard of living in all member state. Of course the whole construct has developed since then, through the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the political landscape changed. Lots of countries became new members, instead of 6, there are now 28. There was a new treaty and now it is called European Union. But what stayed was the purpose: to work together to ensure better living for all and peace in Europe.
This is where of course people debate about whether the EU has reached the goal of ensuring better living standards for all. But it definitely has succeeded in preventing the member states to go to war at each other.
One of the foundations of the EU is the internal market, meaning that within the EU economically it is treated as if it were one country. This bring the so called "four freedoms", the free movement of goods, capital, services, and people. This is why I could find a job in Italy now if I wanted, why a French company can work in Spain without any problems and the British can drive over the France and by a truck full of French wine for the guests at their wedding. Besides that the EU also has instituted a large number of other rights and freedoms.
However, the ability to work together and live together has in my opinion changed Europe for its better so much. Young people grow up traveling to other countries, working or studying in other countries.
The scary thing to me is now that one country has said that they don't want to take part in this anymore. As faulty as the EU is (and there are huge issues), I always thought it was European consensus that it was still better than going back to the centuries of wars and wars. And on top of that it is the country that has the longest democratic tradition within Europe, that has been holding up the values of freedom even in dark times in Europe. A country which could be a leader in the whole European process. This really worries me.