Several generations ago it was normal that Europeans had a major war once a generation. Every village in Germany, France, Britain has a monument in it with long lists of names of men who died. Today we can all move freely, work together, share ideas, in many cases even share the same currency, etc. That sometimes causes friction, people like to complain, and newspapers run the occasional sensationalist headline to sell copies. The reality is literally millions of EU citizens now travel in, do business with, interact with, study in, and (in the case of EU elections) even vote in each other's countries. We've come a very, very long way. It has become so normal it almost isn't mentioned any more. Does that mean everything is perfect when different cultures meet? No, of course not. But at least we're not killing each other anymore.

I hope next year when we reach the 100th anniversary of WWI (the sheer scale of the carnage is difficult for us to even fathom today) more is made of how far we've come. And if you think that this progress was all inevitable, consider as a counter example that in our lifetimes there was still ethnic cleansing happening in Europe in Yugoslavia. Peace is hard work, we should all be very thankful.