The European Dream Our World

An Our World special: The European Dream.

If the European Union has a birthplace, then it is here. In this

little cottage in a woodland west of Paris. The dream was to make peace

among European countries. If the EU has a founding father than it is

this man, Jean Monet. -- then. In postwar Europe, with a circle of

advisers, over coffee and cognac, they'd dream golf a continent

prosperous and at peace. -- they dreamed of a. It was a great thing.

It was easy to move to the UK. The EU has grown from a community of Six

Nations to a union of 28. Morale waiting to join the club. So why do

some say the dream has become a nightmare? -- more are. The taxes,

all the migrants... They had a vision. In this house, they set the

whole European project in motion. But what has become of that original

vision? What state of health is the European dream in today? Jean Monet

had an idea, to bind the economies of Europe so tightly that war would

become impossible. He told his plan to the French Foreign Minister.

Together, they formulated this declaration. The Schuman

Declaration. Those at early Europe builders began by pooling French and

German production of steel. It was the first step towards de facto

solidarity and would lead, they hoped, towards a unified Europe.

There aren't many of that generation left today. George is the last

surviving member of his original cabinet at the European coal and

steel community. It was the first institution out of which would grow

the European Union. The dream was to make peace among European

countries. Stable and credible. Then there was another element. That was

prosperity. So, the problem was not only to rebuild Europe, but to

modernise Europe. In this respect, we were looking at the exact route

of the United States of America. Especially the size of the market.

So, this is you? Yes. LAUGHTER. Peace and prosperity. That

was the deal. They would soon sign the Treaty of Rome. The ambition was

always for a much closer union. The driving powers were France and

Germany, which, together, formed the central axis of a future European

Union. This is the Rhine in Germany. Across the oriver, France. -- river.

These two towns, which saw three wars in World War Two, are now the

heartland of the European Union. Two towns on opposite banks of the

Rhine. They are living together in peace. Their citizens can travel

freely backwards and forwards over this bridge, and whatever side they

happen to find themselves on, they can pay in a common currency. In so

many ways, this is exactly what the European project has always hoped to

achieve. Over the decades, Europe brought with it all sorts of

benefits, jobs, common rights and protections for workers, health and

safety laws, equal pay, the rental leave, but you don't have to dig

very deep here to discover that the river still divides. -- parental

leave. On the French side, there were once many factories. This one

used to produce pistons for the European car industry, but high

labour costs forced it to close. Back across the river, in a German

town, they have full employment. This region is one of the richest in

the EU. And here, we stumble across what

appears to be the most pro-EU place in the union. Welcome to Europe

Park. Meet Euro Mouse, the mascot of this Europe microcosm. Nestled among

the rollercoasters our many of the member states. Scandinavia,

Portugal, Greece, which includes Pegasus, the Sandra post- curse, and

the flight of it as is -- Icarus. There is even a produce section.

Fast food and Shakespeare. Who knew that the EU could be such family

fun. Our favourite part is Scandinavia. The wooden

rollercoasters awesome. -- rollercoasters. It reads like a

German industrial fairytale. It was founded by stall works of German

manufacturing since the late 18th century. -- stalwarts. It opened in

1975, inspired by the vision of a united Europe. It was the best way

to go. Nobody believed at that time that Europe would be as big as it is

today. As much of Europe struggles with an economic crisis, in Germany,

the dream of prosperity still burns bright. Today, nearly half the

park's workers are from other EU nation. We are growing really fast.

We will open a water park soon. We will need 700 more employees. It is

difficult. The employment rate is so low in this area. You can't find the

workers? Yeah. Despite Europe's economy is growing at different

speeds, its nations are, today, united in peace. -- economies. 100

years ago, millions of young men lost their lives in these fields.

Along the roads that winds through the Europe's heartland, history

lurks around every band. -- bend. This is Strasbourg, a city once

fought over, now at the heart of the European project. The French home of

the European Parliament. Throughout the EU's development, from its

beginnings in coal and steel, the direction of travel has been one

way, towards ever closer union. Its founders envisaged a United States

of Europe. Maybe we were naive, but we thought we were in a position to

change European history. Some thought we were stupid but we

believed in that. At that time, we had the backing of public opinion on

the continent. But this man's dream of a combined Europe is no longer

popular, even here in Strasbourg. These young activists are out

campaigning. They are the far right Front National. I was born in 1992.

It was the year of the Treaty of Maastricht. We did not know this

European dream. We only knew unemployment, the taxes, and the

disadvantages of the European Union. It has been a fail for us. The Front

National is booming. Marine Le Pen could become president of France.

She has promised to follow Britain's lead and hold a referendum

on EU membership. Julia says she will vote out. Some people worry

that a party like yours is leading Europe act towards nationalism and

back towards the place it was in the 1930s. -- back. You are right. The

European Union is doing that, by creating unemployment and violence

and in security. Apart from a few roadsigns, there is nothing to tell

you that I have walked across an international frontier. And not just

any old frontier. It is not so long ago that this was the Iron Curtain,

stretching all the way from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, a line

of barbed wire dividing Europe into binary opposites. All of that

changed in 1989. MUSIC PLAYS. The fall of the Berlin Wall led to the

biggest expansion of the European project since its inception. It

brought common is nations to the European Union. -- communist. This

is hungry's third largest city on the border with Serbia. Since

joining in 2004, they have benefited from billions of euros of EU

investment. But for the citizens of the former eastern bloc, perhaps the

most cherished European principle is that of freedom of movement, the

ability to travel, to live, to work, anywhere in the EU. It is a great

thing for me because I am free to move. It was easy to move to the UK

when I went there as a medical professional. It was free to move,

free to cross the border is. A nurse in a care home in Szeged earns one

sixth of what they could earn in the UK. Institutions like Britain's

public health service, the NHS. Freedom of movement between the

nations of the EU may be causing concern elsewhere, but not here. But

the opening up of borders inside the union has highlighted deep sense of

unease, one that was thrown into the sharp relief last summer. The

migrant crisis. Europe's inability to forge a common response boiled

over at the train station in the Hungarian capital, or depressed,

after Germany unilaterally declared itself open for refugees. And so

began the mass movement of people across and unwilling and disunited

EU. Hungary was the first to close its borders. Others have followed

suit. The Hungarian Prime Minister has

taken these ideas from the fringes into the political mainstream. He

has called his brand of politics you liberal democracy. For him and his

supporters, the biggest threat to their European identity is the

European Union itself. -- illiberal democracy.

There is a growing dissident movement in European politics, one

which reject ever closer union in favour of a strong nation state. On

border control, on foreign policy, on the euro, Europe does not speak

with one voice. The fall of the Berlin Wall once looked like the

triumph of liberalism in the drive towards ever closer union. But that

momentum has stalled, and so, more than a quarter of a century after

they tore down the Iron Curtain, they are putting fences back up

again. This is perhaps the biggest crisis of unity the EU has ever

faced. It was here in the provincial Dutch town of Maastricht that the EU

as we know it today was really created. It was here that the

signing of the Maastricht Treaty that the European can community

became a union. -- European Community. We go in search of the

document, which is housed in a sort of modern castle, apparently

surrounded by a moat. Eric Lemon is the curator, the man who guards the

treaty. This is it. This is it. It is a copy, it is not the original

treaty. We persuade them to open up the Cabinet. So we can leave through

the treaty for ourselves. How significant is this document? This

treaty? Yes. Very significant. The European Union is founded in this

treaty, and of course, because of the common European currency which

was also established, the Maastricht Treaty. Then came the crisis in the

eurozone, and that posed a fundamental question. Can democratic

sovereignty survived monetary union? Nowhere has that question being as

stark as it has in the country where democracy was born, in Greece. The

rise of the bread queue is a sign that things have gone very wrong

indeed. This town is north of Atherton 's, nearly half of its

residents are unemployed. When Greece could no longer pay its

debts, it was bailed out by the EU in return for a strict regime of

austerity. This austerity, these measures, they are so cruel.

Especially for young, for the young generation. So difficult to keep

up. That's what I think. The Greeks are in a bind. Last year they voted

overwhelmingly against posterity. What did they get? Posterity anyway.

Why are? Because many fear that life outside the euro would be even

worse. Despite posterity, most want to remain in the single currency.

And so Greece's left-wing government, elected on an

anti-austerity programme, made a choice to implement policies it

didn't agree with in order to remain part of the club. From the very

beginning, there were questions. Can you have monetary union without

having political union as well? Can you have a single currency and lots

of different economic policies? What Greece shows us is that you can't.

From the beginning, the founders of the European Union realised that

prosperity is the key. The key to avoiding future conflicts and

repairing a continent racked by war. In German, they have a single word

that describes their country's post-war resurrection. Come to the

Porsche factory in Stuttgart and see it for yourself. The crisis in the

eurozone, in Greece and elsewhere, has kept the euro week. And that is

good for Germany's export driven economy. But the workers at Porsche

factory know that German success also depends on the survival of the

union. Wider Germany they allowed Greece? Not because they are such

good persons or something but because all of us are connected

somehow to each other, and if one goes broke than the whole system is

collapsing. Here is a confident country, and one which mostly

believes in the European project. They are frustrated with those who

just don't seem to get it. This is the Heute Show, and this is

its presenter, Bolivar. Much of its humour seems to revolve around

sausage, but he uses wurst to represent Germany's unease with its

role as leader during the economic and migrant crisis. The thing is, in

Germany there is an expression, and again there is the wurst, we were

mingling along and seeing what happens, muddling through. Can we

continue like that? Can we continue to sausage our way through Europe? I

invented a whole is new expression! And do you think it will work? Well,

it worked for the last five or six years. I'm not so sure is really the

master plan for the next years, but of one thing you can be sure. There

will never be a German government which will say OK, now in we will

really take the lead, if you lead the way in the rest follows that

doesn't work they hate you for the rest of your life. Even we want to

be loved, you know? That's the sad truth. Even the Germans want to be

loved. It has been more than 65 years since Europe set out on a

journey that has led to today's complex union of 28 member states.

But from the very beginning the founding fathers identified one

country as the key to the European project. We wanted to give Germany a

path to recovering their sovereignty. With us, not against

us. Making sure that the German recovery will not come a threat. And

this is what happened. It just happens that the most powerful

country in Europe believes in Europe, the European dream. And so

we are back where we were at the beginning of this programme, in a

German town overlooking the Rhine into France. Whatever you think

about the post-war European project, its greatest achievement

surely as this, that it does now seem inconceivable for any member of

the union to take up arms against another. If the European dream is

piece than the EU has succeeded. Europe's heartland and its newer

members are today undoubtedly more prosperous as well than they were in

the aftermath of the 20th-century wars that spurred Europe greater

integration. But as the union struggles to find common responses

to the crises of the 21st century, the question is how much further

sure that integration go? That is the issue that now divides this

continent.