Last Thursday I was in Prague where I had been invited to give the concluding speech at a day long conference on the 'Future of Europe' attended by journalists, academics and parliamentarians as well as members of the general public.

The quality of the debate was high. But there will be one lasting impression on my mind: a speech by a German Socialist politician, Martin Schulz, who gave an overview of 20th century history in Europe.

A history lecture, by a German, in the Czech Republic, on the lessons to learnt from 20th century history is not self evident. The fact that nobody batted an eyelid and he got a strong ovation is a measure of how far we have come in Europe!

Martin's line was that we should draw the lessons from some major turning points in European history.

The end of the First World War saw the dissolution of the Austrian/Hungarian empire creating several new states, chaos in Germany and Russia and the dissolution of the Ottoman empire also creating several new states. At the same time the economic situation was dire. Tensions were high.

Broadly there were two kinds of political reaction: Those who took the simplistic ultra-nationalist line of protectionism, rivalry and conflict with neighbouring countries, "ourselves first and too bad for everyone else" attitudes, and others who took an internationalist outlook, tried to build the League of Nations, argued against economic protectionism and sought ways to co-operate across frontiers for mutual benefit.

Sadly, the inter-war period saw the triumph of the former group, causing and so on - was the spiral of events that eventually led to World War two.

Fortunately, this mistake was not repeated after the Second World War, nor (except in the Balkans) after the fall of communism in 1989.

Yet now he detected a revival in some countries of this ultra-nationalist approach. If left unchallenged, it could bring untold damage to our continent.