What’s the point of the EU? The World War I Centenary and the myth of the EU’s ‘peace mission’

Can the EU, instead of being a signatory to a treaty that would fatally undermine its own powers, grasp the bigger historical picture and the opportunity to find a new historic role in protecting its citizens rather than further enslaving them to a doomed and increasingly indefensible system? Only perhaps if it can abandon the unconvincing myth that its principal rationale and role is to prevent war between nation-states. Is it too much to hope that the anniversary of 1914 might lead to a revaluation of the EU’s history, and a deeper analysis of the epochal, systemic tremors we can all sense?