The EU is and was very much a political project. Built on the mantra “Never more war in Europe” - Europe was still in smoke when the predecessor to today’s EU, the European Steel and Coal Community, was first created in 1951.
The idea was to bring the European nations together. Now, some 65 years later, we are at risk of destroying what has taken so many years to establish. That is not to suggest that the EU is perfect (it is certainly not), or that leaving the EU could lead to war in Europe.
The political leadership in Europe have, since day one, been a step or two ahead of ordinary people, and such vision has been absolutely necessary in order to get so many different nations and cultures to function as one.
That said, more recently, near fatal mistakes have been made, which have caused many people to lose their faith in the whole idea. "The biggest mistake of them all – at least from a timing point of view - was the introduction of the euro," says Danish economist Niels Jensen.
"Europe simply wasn’t ready for that project, and now the EU runs the risk of the first ever member nation leaving the club again, because political leaders in Europe have been overly ambitious and perhaps even a bit arrogant." The problems with a referendum of this kind is that most people struggle to get to the bottom of such a complex issue. What would it really mean to me, should we decide to leave the EU? People ask this question all the time but, in reality, nobody knows the answer, which is why the discussion is at risk of becoming so superficial and so driven by emotions.
No other country has ever left the EU, so we can’t even learn from those who have chosen to do so previously.
At the end of the day though, we should remember why it was that the EU was established. "It was to build bridges," say Jensen in this interview - http://goo.gl/xuJL9H. "Leaving the EU now risks destroying those bridges that have taken so long to build,"