basically the European leaders became convinced that the only way to secure a lasting peace between their countries was to unite them economically and politically. In other words almost all the countries in Europe united. The European Union was an extremly a good thing because it was like all of europe was one big country, and also all the people that were in the European Union can go from country to country with out boarder checks. This will prevent wars from happining because, lets just say that the Russians decide to take over some coutnry in the European Union, Russia will also get jumped by all of the other countries in the European Union.