Mostly it exists so we don’t kill each other -European imperialism is a direct outgrowth of being the most warlike continent for hundreds of years. When they talk about “civil war times” in the history of China ... that’s the whole history of Europe. I have 300 castles around my hometown ... I can find WW2 bombs and Munition from the 30 years war in the forest.
So true - and the comparison might not even be possible, but Europe had very small units fighting each other and at the same time there was a feeling of common religion and culture. That is pretty unique and uniquely stupid. So let’s state it a bit differently we are complete idiots and we were mostly governed by 5 families over 1000 years and these 5 families fought each other and burned everything into the ground and then married each other. So to be no longer governed by complete idiots that fight each other mostly for entertainment there is the EU.
