My country, Czech Republic, has again expressed strong objections against future changes of the European Union. This is for the second time, after our president refused to sign the Treaty of Lisbon.
I’m not going to analyze the reasons and legitimacy of those actions. (By the way, it’s necessary to remark that there is no consensus about them in our country.) I’d like to explain what’s the major problem with undermining the European Union and why I consider it inherently harmful.
Some people think there are wrong things with the European Union and the solution is to weaken or destroy it. Yes, there are wrong things with the European Union. But the “solution” desired by the EU antagonists is completely erroneous, whether intentionally or not. The problem is there is actually no alternative to a strong European Union and I can’t believe things would be any better without it. We must accept this fact, whether we like it or not, and to try to do our best to make the European Union better. Thus when we fight for or against the European Union itself we just waste resources that could be utilized for useful activities, improvements and changing what is wrong. The challenges of cooperation, integration and globalization are demanding. When we have to defend the obvious facts, we are distracted from solving the real problems. This is where the opponents of the European Union score and contribute to their goal, while making harm to all of us.
As a software developer I daily use things and work with things which are wrong, often very wrong. But I have to continue working with them, fixing them and to look for ways how to deal with all the problems. Regardless how much I’d like to get rid of it and throw all the buggy software out of the window together with my computer, I don’t do it. You see, the decision to stop using computers is no real alternative. They are here, we need them and they are, ehm, often useful.
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