When people stand up and talk about the great success that the EU has been, I'm not sure anybody saying it really believes it themselves anymore.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
People feel that in too many ways the EU is something that is done to them, not something over which they have a say.
The EU is not a country and it's not going to become a country, in my view, now or ever in the future. It is a group of countries working together.
As politicians we have to react to the fact that many people do not feel that they can relate to the EU.
People feel that the EU is a one-way process, a great machine that sucks up decision-making from national parliaments to the European level until everything is decided by the EU. That needs to change.
Of course, the EU is not going to fall apart, but at best it will stagnate for the foreseeable future and we will be dealing with quite a lot of internal chaos.
It's the invincible arrogance of Europe's elites that gets me. These are people who have seen the euro collapse. These are people who are presiding over a migration crisis on their borders, and yet do they ever acknowledge that they need to change? No. They say they need more integration, more of our money, more control over this country.
If people do not believe in Europe and in the euro area, it must be dismantled.
If the euro zone doesn't come up with a comprehensive vision of its own future, you'll have a whole range of nationalist, xenophobic and extreme movements increasing across the European Union. And, frankly, questions about the British debate on EU membership will just be a small sideshow compared to the rise of political populism.
In the EU you have half a billion people who share a common belief in democracy, in rights, in the kind of economic life we want.
We believe that the European Union is facing a truly historic choice.
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