Margaret Thatcher didn't just transform the UK. She was also one of the great architects of today's European Union – and her career offers a message of hope amid the continent's current struggles.

Although regarded in her later years as the spiritual leader of British euroscepticism, her record in office tells a more nuanced tale. As prime minister, she was a driving force behind the creation of Europe's Single Market, its greatest achievement. The free movement of goods, capital and people within the EU has been a major contributor to European growth and the engine of European integration. She was also one of the earliest advocates of the EU's eastward expansion; even before the fall of the Berlin Wall, she spoke farsightedly of those countries cut off from their European roots by the Iron Curtain.