In contemporary Europe there are two drifts, amalgamation and disintegration. Discuss both trends, explaining the obstacles to unification in Western Europe, both past and present, efforts to unify and strengthen to EU, and, the balkanization of the former countries of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.
While the unification of Europe is begining with the EU, the contries themselves are breaking apart. In many of the countries, the ethnicity of the region is so varied that the the people want to be atonomous. Now that many are free to rule themselves, they are joining with the EU. Europe is becoming one nation with many states, all with freedom to govern themselves like the United States of America.