882 miles, 5 countries in 5 days & great discoveries in the low countries ... or why we need the EU.

Travelling over what used to be multiple borders, each with their own immigration and hardly hitting the break peddle is a strange experience.  One is aware that something has changed: the signs change colour and from one dialect to another, there are a few more bicyclists in one country, better road maintenance in another.  But during my travels through France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg, it struck me that one eased between each country, both in terms of crossing the border and in terms of the culture.  Flemish, French, Germanic and Anglo-Saxon culture could be observed in varying amounts in almost every part of the 'low countries'.  Architecture, languages and borders were smudged, unclear. 

My travelling companion and I discussed the importance of the EU; his argument against the EU sort of went as follows: 
1. What activity could or would not happen at cross-national level? Is the EU just another level of government? 
2. Isn't the EU simply adding expense & regulation when the individual nation state or, even, the individual person would do better alone?  For example, Switzerland & Norway participate in EU programmes with tangential links to the EU, the UK & Denmark participate financially without the Euro. 

But, my counter arguments went as follows:
1. Activity is not at cross-national but multi-national level.  Student exchanges and research projects are increasingly not working between 2 countries but between 3, 6, 10; I am not convinced this would happen with any uniformity of service - if at all - without some co-ordinating power.   
2. The size of some states and their budgets would stop some of the activity.  For example, BeNeLux already felt an alliance was better as jointly they had more influence and capacity. 
3. There is a clear pride and sense of identity in being associated with the EU. 

And this is why the EU has to work; currencies may come and go but the idea of not travelling freely or working together would greatly impinge on the lives of many Europeans.  As a nation on the edge, the UK often condemns the EU but it is only when one sees the power, ease, complexity & uniform acceptance of co-operation face to face that it becomes clear it will last in some form. 

This is the position that Robert Schuman wanted Europe to get to when he founded the fore-father of the EU, the European Coal and Steel Community.  He wanted war not only to be impossible but to be unthinkable.  As a man born in Luxembourg, graduating from German Universities and then French when Alsace-Lorraine was annexed, he was a French & European politician, a true example of what it is to be European. 

Today, Schuman's vision is mostly true, my trip across Europe was proof of integration, our defence of the EU and the Euro needs to be in the same vain: there is too much to lose by not working together.