The European Union
Rivalries set aside, deliberately
- European states began to set aside nationalist rivalries in favour of economic and political integration, forming a series of transnational unions that grew in size and scope over the second half of the 20th century.
- Set aside is a choice, not a disappearance — the rivalries are still there, and the states decide not to act on them.
- A series... that grew in size and scope says integration was incremental, not founded once.
'Set aside nationalist rivalries' means the rivalries...
A choice, not a disappearance.
Sovereignty against membership
- EU member nations continue to balance questions of national sovereignty with the responsibilities of membership in an economic and political union.
- Continue to balance is present tense and ongoing — the CED declines to say the question is settled.
- So the union is described as a standing negotiation, not a finished constitutional arrangement.
'Continue to balance' tells you the sovereignty question is...
The CED uses the present tense on purpose.
Why this is the end of unit 5's story
- 5.7's Congress of Vienna tried to contain the danger of revolutionary or nationalistic upheavals, by agreement between powers.
- The EU addresses the same danger by a different method: making the rivalries costly to act on rather than policing them.
- Two hundred years, one problem, two answers — that comparison is the strongest thing available here.
Integration, the standing tension, or the comparison with Vienna?
Sort each element of the European Union.
The unions grew in size and ____ over the second half of the century.
Integration was incremental, not founded once.
'Set aside' is a choice, not a disappearance. European states began to set aside nationalist rivalries in favour of economic and political integration — the rivalries remain, and member nations continue to balance sovereignty against the responsibilities of membership, in the CED's own present tense.
Match each response to the same danger.
Two hundred years, one problem, two answers.
And what it does to identity
- 9.10 carries a second objective: how the European Union affected national and European identity.
- A person can hold a national identity and a European one, and the CED's balancing sentence is the political form of that.
- 7.2 showed nationalism could build or dissolve a state; the EU asks whether a second, larger belonging can sit above one.
9.10 carries a second objective about national and European identity.
The balancing sentence is the political form of holding both.
Economic developments and identity
- Economic: integration grew in size and scope, and 9.7 records enlargement through the admission of former Eastern bloc countries.
- Identity: an ongoing balance between sovereignty and membership, unresolved by the CED's own account.
- Answer the two objectives separately, then join them with the sentence about balance.
Two states with a long quarrel bind their coal and steel together, so that fighting each other would first require dismantling something both need. The quarrel is not settled. It has been made expensive, which for practical purposes is a different kind of peace.
European states began to set aside nationalist rivalries in favour of economic and political integration, forming a series of transnational unions that grew in size and scope over the second half of the 20th century, and EU member nations continue to balance questions of national sovereignty with the responsibilities of membership in an economic and political union. Both verbs are ongoing: the rivalries are set aside, not dissolved, and the balance is continuing, not settled.