A comment on Brexit

The United Kingdom and the European Union have shared a long-standing but not always harmonious relationship. In the referendum of 1975, Britons voted in favour of staying in the Common Market but since then there have been growing calls for another vote. The basis of these calls is that the EU has changed a lot over the past 40 years, in terms of expansion and extending its control over more aspects of daily lives. While the above argument is to a certain extent true, what is not entirely true are the exaggerated criticisms raised by Eurosceptics about the success of our Union which leads to an overconfidence bias that the UK can do better on its own.

The EU is one of strongest economic areas in the world, it negotiates trade agreements with the rest of the world such as the 'Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership' from which the UK could enormously benefit, millions of UK jobs are directly linked to the British membership of the EU's single market and of course the main buyer of British products and services is the EU; the above being only few facts to consider. I have myself lived in the UK for many years now and I also hold a strong belief that the UK is better off within the EU, coming to agree with most of the reasons the #Bremain side endorsed during the UK referendum campaign.

So Britons have voted Brexit...

First and foremost, the European Union is not falling into pieces and we should look towards our Union's future with optimism. The case of Britain is nothing similar to other countries where Euroscepticism is at rise. The British membership has not been debated in the last four months of campaigning but it was four decades of latent Euroscepticism that never really went away. The last four months were just the culmination of this; an orchestrated and misleading public campaign. The remaining 27 MS will stick together and to the process of further integration and we have to remain committed to that. Youths strongly favoured Remain with the great majority of young Brits voting for UK to stay in the European Union. That it is an issue. We are the children for which the European project was made for and younger generations should be the ones to decide on what to do with Europe. Young Britons spoke out loud that they want to use the benefits of EU to make their lives better and more prosperous. Younger voters are therefore the biggest losers since although they did not choose for it, they will have to live with it the longer. We cannot ignore Populists anymore, this is largely ineffective. The overwhelming majority of the UK Parliament and Cabinet supported Remain. So did the most esteemed figures from economics and society who are the ones being best aware of what the EU does for UK and what a Brexit would mean. It is truly remarkable how people once more voted based on misguided perceptions and not facts. Political parties that do have their own ideologies, they have to re-engage with the public, increase accountability, introduce reforms better adapted to modern society, boost job creation and growth, they have to look for new approaches and stop populism gaining ground in Europe.

At the same time, I am not one of those who argue that the EU is perfect neither it is the purpose of this letter to do so. It is however of paramount importance that EU citizens are well-informed of what the good Europe is doing for its people in order to objectively discuss the pros and cons of our Union and work on improving the areas where there is space to do so.