EU video cites Churchill's enthusiasm
Archive footage of Sir Winston Churchill has been chosen to open a video celebrating the EU's receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize.
The video on the European Council's YouTube channel features Sir Winston declaring in 1946: "We must build a kind of United States of Europe."
In the speech, he also urged Europeans to "turn our backs upon the horrors of the past" and "look to the future".
But how he foresaw British relations with the union has long been debated.
The speech was delivered to the University of Zurich in the aftermath of the Second World War.
He told his audience: "We must re-create the European family in a regional structure called, it may be, the United States of Europe, and the first practical step will be to form a Council of Europe."
'English-speaking peoples'
The UK went on to become a founder member of the Council of Europe - an institution which pre-dates the European Union's predecessor bodies, and remains separate from it.
Sir Winston's pivotal contribution to political co-operation in Europe is recognised by the decision to name after him a prominent building belonging to the EU's Parliament in Strasbourg.
Visitors to the Churchill building are greeted by a life-size cardboard cut-out photograph of the former Conservative prime minister looming near to the main entrance.
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