Source - The Telegraph

The EU is a malfunctioning construct for today’s world – and even more so for tomorrow’s. It needs either to undergo fundamental reform or to break up. It was conceived in a world of large blocs, dominated by the Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and before globalization and the rise of the emerging markets. Its agenda of harmonization and integration inevitably leads to excessive regulation and the smothering of competition. This is largely why, in contrast to the prevailing view that the EU has been an economic success, its economic performance has in fact been relatively poor. If nothing changes, the EU’s share of world GDP is set to fall sharply and, with it, Europe’s influence in the world. Meanwhile, the EU is becoming more unpopular; most people do not want to press on to a full political union; and increasing numbers of its citizens want to leave the EU altogether. European integration is the great issue of our day. Like many British people, I feel both British and European. The culture I love is European – its food and its wine, its history and its buildings, its literature and its art and, for me, especially its music. It is precisely because I am so much of a European, and because I so desperately want Europe to succeed in the world, that I take issue with the EU as it is currently constituted. For me, the EU is the most important thing that stands between Europe and success. It has several key defects: it suffers from a profound identity crisis; its institutions are mainly badly structured and badly run; it is focused on a largely irrelevant agenda; and it is alienated from its electorates. To the casual observer, it may seem that the EU has been successful. After all, it is the world’s largest economy and trading bloc. It accounts for almost 30% of global output, 15% of trade in goods and about 24pc of overall global trade. Its people are prosperous, with standards of living that their parents and grandparents could only dream about.