If you don’t like the European Union, please read these 4 points

So you don’t like the EU, and I do. Can we find some common ground in 4 points?

In 1951, after Europe had been ravaged by World War II, some of countries previously at war agree on a cooperation agreement. The agreement institutes the CECA, one of the ancestors of the European Union. In the picture, the ceremonial signature in Paris. Since the agreement, the signing countries have been at peace with each other, for the roughly 70 years hence.

If you don’t like the European Union, let’s go back to the basics, and see if we can find some common ground. Agreed?

I’m sure we both want Prosperity and Freedom for everybody. We may well define such things a bit differently (that’s ok!), but there are almost certainly some core values that we share.

Here’s some uncontroversial good facts I ask you to consider, without prejudice. They are ideologically neutral — they are hopefully good simply based on the values that any people of goodwill share, regardless of the differences.

1. The countries part of the European project have not warred each other for 70 years. This is something we may take for granted, but it’s an absolute exception in the European history, where the norm is conflict, not peace.
   Is it just a coincidence? Perhaps. Maybe the European project got very lucky, and coincided with a long peace that may have happened anyways. However: this is like a centuries long, uninterrupted history of painful break-ins to your house — which then suddenly stops, right after installing a new security system. Is it wise to bet that perhaps it’s just coincidence? Would you get rid of your new security system just betting on the idea that, perhaps, the security is just coincidence? Getting rid of the European Union is the same: you are betting on the idea that this long peace, perhaps, it’s just coincidence.
2. The long-term living standards and overall economy in Europe have dramatically increased. Compare just about any indicator from the year 1950, when the first incarnation of the European Union was created, with the same indicator today. GDP, life expectancy, education, child mortality, you name it. All got better.
   Coincidence? Perhaps — the world’s living standards have certainly on average increased too. But it is also very obvious, at the very least, that the EU economic policies couldn’t have been bad on balance for the economy of the continent, and for the living standards of its citizens.
   If you disagree with this last sentence, I invite you to find one single measure, just one — that shows that the standards of living got worse in the long term in the EU. You will not find any, because there is none. Young Europeans simply live better than their grandfathers. The economy keeps growing. There are problems to to be solved in the distribution of wealth, but they are nothing in comparison with just about any other large economic zone in the world.
   Also, look at EU’s largest neighbor — and the absolute disaster of the Russian economy, especially during recent Putin’s years. Maybe the EU was doing something right throughout this time— or are we willing to bet again that it was all just coincidence?
3. You can pack a suitcase, put your family in a car, and drive from Lisbon to Prague. You don’t have to worry about showing your Passport at the borders. Maybe this does not seem such a great value to you; but it is because of this trivial fact that millions of people found life experience, education opportunities, business opportunities, love in their private lives, friends, enriching discoveries. Sure, it’s possible to travel even if you have to care about Passports and Visas: but complications dilute opportunities. Try traveling through a myriad of African countries and through their borders — and see if that’s what you want. It’s of course not only passports — it’s health insurance, pet vaccination, research and education networks, hundreds of big and small things including the right to go open a Pizzeria anywhere in Europe just because you are European Citizen. That’s priceless.
4. You are free, in Europe. That’s a big deal.
   I’m aware that ‘free’ is a word that sometimes generates confusion. Perhaps we have different ideas on what freedom exactly should be — that’s OK. It’s also OK if you think that the European institutions need to be more open, more transparent, and work to be closer to the people. I think that too! But can we perhaps find a way to agree on a core definition of what constitutes freedom?
   To achieve agreement on this, I propose the Freedom Chanting Contest. We will probably agree that a very basic level of test for ‘freedom’, however we may disagree on the details, is the ability to publicly chant against the highest levels of political power in a given State. So the Freedom Chanting Contest works this way.
   Choose a number of countries on the world’s map, and for each of them invent a strongly worded, poignant chant about their Head of State. Make it really irritating. Perhaps invoke the Virgin Mary, or some other local deity, to get rid of the Head of State.
   Now, take your newly invented chant, and try it on the field. Go to a prominent public place, in the capital of each country, and intone your chant against the President, the Awesome Secretary, the Great Leader, or whatever. Done? Let’s collect the results.
   In Paris, London, Madrid, Rome, Brussels, Stockholm (as in Washington) you got at most an officer asking you do it somewhere else because you are disturbing the traffic, or something of the sort.
   This is not what happened in Europe’s neighboring countries. Not in Turkey, I’m afraid. In Russia, if you really had the guts to try chanting against President Putin, you are now serving a long sentence in prison.

With all its faults that we may discuss — Europe is Free, in a way that obviously none of its neighbors are. Europe is prosperous, by just about any comparative measures you can choose. And Europe is at peace.

All this may be coincidence. But if you want to get rid of the institutions that Europeans have on the continent during this exceptionally fortunate set of coincidences — well, if you really want to do that, it’s really on you to make a bulletproof case that all such good stuff is really, really, really, really, just one big coincidence.

The bottom line is that abandoning the EU project is a mad option, unless you can prove beyond a doubt that 1,2,3,4 are coincidences.