In Germany we say that the EU has replaced the battleground with the negotiation table. That's what it's got the Nobel peace prize for and I think it deserved it.

I don't think there was any prospect of war between the EU countries while the USSR was around, it seems folly to pin peace to an institution when it was a greater enemy that actually united us.

WW2 happened while the USSR was around.

Before they had a huge, modernized army that would easily win a land battle for Europe.

That's a bit misleading because the EU we know today wasn't actually around back when the USSR was still a thing.

It only became fully realized with the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, which was shortly after the fall of the USSR in 1991.

Was it responsible for the 45 years of peace after WW2 or not?

The EU? It very likely did its fair share for making that a reality.

But I wouldn't go as far as claiming it's solely responsible for it because rarely anything is as simple as that.

IMHO the EU is a direct result of the two World Wars, not the Cold War (we're only starting to see the results of the Cold War now).

Yeah the League of Nations was the result of the first one and it failed. Given the sheer slaughter they needed a way to forge peace as it clearly was massively self destructive.

I am not sure how true it was but I heard a theory that Europe lost much of its intellectual prominence due to so many young men dying in the trenches in WW1 - now Europe does good intellectual work now but it is more "neat thing out of Europe" as opposed to "the hotspot". I am not well equipped to evaluate the merits but the idea is interesting at very least.

Yes, after two failed attempts to conquer Europe by military force, Germans finally realized they can achieve the same effect much easier with their economical power and then created EU :)

Worth remembering that a lot of people in the UK, possibly a majority by this point, are perfectly clear as to what we stand to lose if the UK leaves the EU. :-(

Pack your bags and come over here. ;-)

Oh agreed! And don’t forget the tea. Just skip the second referendum and let all the remain voters hang out over here, so we can have tea with baguette forever.