COLIN Smith (Letters, March 26) asserts that ‘EU has nothing to do with peace in Europe’.

The European Iron & Steel Federation initiated by Robert Schuman in 1952 via the Treaty of Paris was set up to “make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible”.

Mr Smith’s peculiar knowledge of history firstly confines his case to the wars of the early and mid- 20th century but ignores the Franco Prussian, Napoleonic and Crimean wars, all fought on mainland Europe. The nation states of Europe have not engaged in war since the Treaty of Paris.

Mr Smith comes up with the next odd assertion that the existence of what he chooses to describe as ‘constitutional democracies’ in Europe have prevented war. I suspect that he has forgotten the dictatorships of Spain and Portugal which have become democracies since the existence of the EU!

It was sad that he agrees with the UKIP pro-Putin view of the Ukraine situation but unsurprising.

BRIAN DASH, Southampton.