Dear members and supporters of United Europe,
Brexit would mean the UK’s rejection of European integration process and will make of it the kingdom of nationalists and populists, defending the nation-state against Brussels while ignoring that the flourishing of democracy and free markets in Europe has gone hand in hand with the integration process.
The European integration was conceived as a process of political and economic cooperation to go beyond nationalism and protectionism in order to prevent a recurrence of the geopolitical catastrophes that ravaged the continent in the first half of the last century.
That’s why we genuinely think Brexit would be a mistake.
And more generally, the defense of the nation-state against Brussels is a mistake and it is ahistorical as well.
The consequences will be enormous and well beyond the UK or even the EU economy, undermining the West single most outstanding achievement since the WWII.
However,as showed in the analysis and elaboration of our Observatory on Europe, we often agreed on the substance of the growing and well-grounded criticism coming from UK over the last years, particularly when it was addressing the shortcomings in the EU and Euro area governance mechanisms, the lack of competitiveness in the EU economy, the persisting obstacles to the creation of real single markets for products and services and the excess and the contradictions in the policy making and regulatory regimes pushed forward in Brussels.
But the debate on Brexit has been too often reduced in Europe into an updated and extreme version of the British exceptionalism, therefore losing the opportunity to make of it the necessary trigger to gain momentum for fundamental reforms EU badly needs.
EU needs improvements, not dismantling; it needs to reduce the democratic deficit and turning again into an engine of economic dynamism and prosperity.
UK would be key in helping the turnaround.
With our best wishes,
Valerio De Molli
Managing Partner
THE EUROPEAN HOUSE – AMBROSETTI