A eulogy to Europe and its Union

A eulogy to Europe and its Union

To the economist, finding fried Medusa fish on French supermarket counters with the packaging in French suggests a reflection. To the sovereignist knuckleheads, nothing.

That a medium-sized company specialising in delicate products such as cooked and chilled fish and shellfish can play its part in markets such as France and other nations is the result not only of free trade, but also of the much-reviled work of the Union’s bureaucracy.

That bureaucracy that sets the size of clams, the criteria for ‘freshness’, permissible ingredients, etc., and which the cheeseheads scoff at, convinced they know better than the experts who draw up those standards.

But it is trite to remember that, without the assumption of standards that apply to everyone, there can be no fair competition between producers from so many different nations.

The US has had that bureaucracy (FDA) since 1906, thanks to Theodore Roosevelt, and we are simply building it (too slowly).

Just imagine if, according to sovereignist logic, each nation were to establish (as the UK has chosen to do) its own quality and health standards, logistical border controls, duties and tariffs to defend its own autarkic productions, what problems would be encountered by companies like Medusa, which produces in Emilia and sells in France.

If small and medium-sized Italian companies have any chance of growth, stuck as they are in an economy that has been at a standstill for twenty years, they owe it to the great European project and its techno-bureaucratic construction.

This, on condition, of course, that they maintain qualitative, innovative and creative standards capable of competing with and winning over the Union’s immense public, which must be governed by clear rules valid for all.

Daniele Tirelli (from France)

The EU has great advantages that we often take for granted,