The concept of a "Big United Europe" was among the ideas that defined the political transformation of the European nations between Dublin and Vladivostok for some time. De Gaulle’s "Europe from Atlantics to the Urals" and Gorbachev’s "Europe as Common House" are a few expressions of this concept in recent years. However, the significance of this idea has shifted from the utopian vision of several dreamers to a project being realized by major political and economic institutions. The present generation has survived this last great cycle between 1989 and 2014. The fall of the Berlin Wall has made it possible once again to make "Big Europe" united in and by the Council of Europe; the Crimean annexation, the start of the Donbass war, and the introduction of sanctions against each other by the EU and Russia have marked just another period of United Europe’s decline.