Historically, crises have had a healthy influence on the EU. They have forced the member states closer and triggered processes that have led to better preconditions for cooperation. Exactly this was the most central expectation manifested by the original Paris Treaty (1952). In its Preamble the heads of state and government stated their resolve to create “a broad and independent community among peoples long divided by bloody conflicts and to lay the bases of institutions capable of giving direction to their future common destiny.”