The idea that Europe is no longer simply a geographical reference, but a community of peoples is much older than you imagine. Forget the founders of the post-war European community, forget even Victor Hugo; Europe was born in the footsteps of an Irish monk, in an insolence addressed to a pope more than 14 centuries ago.
It happened with Cicero, the day when, to better signify human sensitivities, he shaped the Latin word humanity. When Barnabas in Antioch calls Jesus' disciples for the first time "Christians," when Tertullian invents the word "Trinity," Augustine that of "original sin," this type of word becomes stronger than us; we can no longer think without it. It is the same with the one we call "Europe" and the one that we call 'the world' and 'the history of the world.' It is a story of the birth of a continent, of a destiny, of the creation of a nation.