‘A triple-A rating is more important than solidarity. We’re digging our own grave’

Constanze Clever. Photograph: Süddeutsche Zeitung

A few months ago, I was chatting with my husband’s work colleague in a beer garden. It was about eastern Europe and the question of why those countries take so few refugees. The colleague came from Poland. He was of the view that in Europe we should first and foremost look after ourselves.

In particular, he didn’t want Muslims to be allowed in. According to him, they are a threat to the Christian identity of Europe.

So of course we clashed about this – I’m a fan of open borders, and I find it unbelievable when people oppose open borders while personally benefiting from them. To be able to move freely is a basic right, and the essence of Europe.

In the conversation, it became clear to me: we are both Europeans, but we come from different worlds. For us in Germany, things have gone well materially in the past 10 years. In Poland, things are different. That is why it is important that we reduce the imbalance.

But we’re not doing that. Why must Greece pay such high interest rates on the capital market? Rich Germany pays virtually nothing. We Europeans are under the thumb of financial markets. A triple-A rating is more important than solidarity. So we’re digging our own grave. Unless justice quickly assumes precedence over the economy again, we won’t have the EU much longer. That would be a nightmare.

Constanze Clever, 33, hairdresser, Germany

‘I hate the ever encroaching political union … it’s a vanity project’



Gerard Richardson. Photograph: Gerard Richardson

I don’t think Europe as a group of countries has ever really been able to unite. Cultures, opinions, approaches to everything, from business to foreign relations, are so diverse.

Trade, on the other hand – now that’s a really good harmoniser. People can agree on that far, far more easily. So I liked the idea after the war of uniting around trade. It didn’t have to be complicated, and at first it wasn’t. But then we started down the road to political union.

That’s what I hate: ever encroaching political union. Europe has become a vanity exercise for politicians with too much ambition. The euro was vanity, not based on economic reality. I’m not an isolationist, far from it, but I really, honestly do not believe good government can ever come from too large and diverse a group of politicians.

Look at the hopelessly divided approach to problems like Greece, or the migrant crisis. It’s a disaster. The EU can’t even agree on where to host its own parliament.

There are good parts: free movement, that’s obviously a benefit. But it’s all so badly managed. And I don’t believe the EU has prevented war; Nato did that. If they turned the clock back to the EEC being just a free market alone, then I would be more than happy to stay engaged. They should take the politics out of Europe. It worked as a trading bloc, but not as this.

Gerard Richardson, 55, fine wine merchant and coffee roaster, UK

‘It sows a mentality that there’s always money … but billions have disappeared’

Graça Ramos. Photograph: Süddeutsche Zeitung

First of all, the EU has been a great thing for both “my” countries, Portugal and Spain. The other European countries brought us back to life (after decades of dictatorship). That’s why the vast majority of Spaniards and Portuguese tend to be pro-European. Europe has pumped a lot of money into our countries.

On the one hand the EU has brought positive economic developments, on the other hand there have been negative consequences. It sows a mentality that there is always money. We have lost sight of what it is to save. People haven’t been watching closely enough where all these billions have gone. The economies of both countries have slumped because there hasn’t been effective control over the way this money has been spent.

As a Portuguese woman I’m worried about a “two speed” Europe . Does that mean the small countries will be put aside and suspended? We feel as a small country both protected and accepted within the EU and I hope that that doesn’t change. The Eurosceptic voices in other countries worry me a lot. We must all ask ourselves what we have done wrong.

Graça Ramos, 40, theatre administrator, Spain

‘Nations have no rights. The EU took over everything’

Jozsefne Varadi. Photograph: La Stampa

The nations have no rights. The EU completely took over and everything has to happen here as they wish.



But the EU has a lot of advantages too. We entered to EU so we have to accept a lot of things, I admit, but they should give more independence to nations.



Every time the government wants to decrease utility costs or taxes, or create more workplaces to let us breathe a little bit easier, they have a problem with it. I’m with the nation with all my heart. I do everything. I help campaign. I’m a member of the Fidesz party since its foundation. I consider this government good and fair. Our prime minister needs a lot of bravery to stand up like this for the nation.



Did you see what happened here during the prime minister’s speech? Did you see the people whistling? They think this is not a democracy, but if I had done the same when Ferenc Gyurcsany was prime minister, if I had used my whistle, they would have shot me.

Jozsefne Varadi, 87, pensioner, Hungary

‘Erasmus, the euro, are just sweets with a bitter aftertaste’

Luca Carabetta. Photograph: Luca Carabetta/La Stampa

They draw lines on a map, take decisions from on high, and then, if they don’t work, they use every economic excuse possible to justify them as necessary to maintain the unity and progress.

I am an energy engineer, a young entrepreneur from the Erasmus generation. I was born when Italy joined Schengen, in 1990, and you could leave your passport in the drawer to travel with family, or later to see friends in France, Germany, Denmark. Yet my Euroscepticism began when I was young, in my town of Buttigliera Alta, near Turin. I saw the No-Tav movement (against high speed rail) grow in my valley, the Susa valley, I started studying and concluded that the projects tied to the European corridors were conceived in an office in Brussels, far away from local communities and their needs.

I believe Europe is an extreme concession of sovereignty, which flattens diversity and national identities built throughout history. I do not agree with the economic homogeneity that binds the EU together. Does that seem strange from a young person with foreign friends? Absolutely not. Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement has shown me a clear path for what I always thought, and that’s why I vote for it.

In these years, Brussels has not been able to create a common welfare system, no citizens feel like Europe is closer, notwithstanding the sharing of pseudo-values and the currency. Erasmus, the euro, are sweets with a bitter aftertaste. Unitary economics, so far, has penalised us. Unitary politics, for me, does not represent us, the citizens.

Luca Carabetta, 27, tech CEO, Italy

‘Europe was a nice idea, but globalist politics and the euro have killed us’

Luc Defrance. Photograph: Cyril Bitton

I’m a wheat farmer from northern France. That’s to say I’m one of those people said to be very rich, living off subsidies, smoking a big cigar. In reality, I started work at 16, have worked like a dog for 50 years and am now ruined. I realised we were finished so I sold my operation last June.



Europe was a nice idea, but it’s the globalist politics that has killed us – that and the euro. In the rest of the world, other countries can devalue their currency and become competitive. With the euro, we are trapped. Marine Le Pen is right – we should get out of it.

Europe is just all restrictions and rules. You have to keep records on crop treatments and be careful about employment rules. You are bothered on all fronts. And the slightest mistake could cost you €10,000 in CAP aid, and that’s a catastrophe.

In any case, they’re reducing the aid. In 2010, I got €100,000 in basic grants; last year it was €52,000, and soon there won’t be any more. Doing a job that depend on grants is not healthy. Europe would do better to create a safety net and fix prices rather than grants.

Luc Defrance, 66, farmer, France

‘Many Dutch people feel powerless and angry. It is time to rediscover our identity’



Joost Niemöller. Photograph: Katrien Mulder

As well as books I write a blog called De Nieuwe Realist (the new realist). Europe is a land endowed with a rich civilisation. It works because it is based on the nation states, and yet its goal is to dismantle nation states, which would signify the end of European democracy. That is why many Dutch people, possibly even a majority, would like to leave the EU.



People want to take back control and decide their own future. Mass immigration is a serious problem. Many Dutch people feel powerless and angry. It is time for the Netherlands to rediscover its identity.

Joost Niemöller, 60, writer, the Netherlands

‘The Eurosceptics in my family are happy that Russia is stepping up strongly’

Rozalina Laskova. Photograph: Zdravko Yonchev/Süddeutsche Zeitung

I can’t imagine Europe without the EU and am in favour of more integration. But I sometimes forget that other Bulgarians do not think like that. I have Eurosceptics in my own family, like my mother and aunt, who are bigger supporters of Russian culture, like a lot of Bulgarians. They see and read the same Bulgarian media which speak of the supposed all-encompassing manipulation of our country by Brussels and Washington. My aunt Maria asked me mockingly whether I also get money from the Americans. They are happy that Russia is stepping up so strongly.

Rozalina Laskova, 34, cultural adviser, Bulgaria

‘I would like to do a Swexit … just like in the UK’

Andreas Åberg Photograph: Andreas Åberg

The EU started as something different. In the beginning it was a good thing, a peacekeeping operation. But it has grown into something else: a massive, undemocratic monster, lots of people doing nothing to benefit the voters in their respective countries.

It seems to me more than half of the laws in Sweden are not decided by the Swedish government but by the EU. We vote for the government but if it doesn’t have the majority of the power, how can that be democratic?

We choose representatives for the EU parliament, but I don’t believe that’s democratic either – the ones who really affect what happens are not democratically elected. I haven’t read all the EU laws, only some of them, and some may benefit Sweden – but many don’t.

I work in the construction industry and we have seen a shift towards what they have in the UK, where people from the poorer countries come to work for you, and they do it for lower wages.

The main problem with the EU is that it incorporates loads of countries, and they are so vastly different in every way: welfare, economics, everything. To correct this the EU will have to make the richer countries poorer. So I would like to do a Swexit – have a referendum like in the UK, and leave.

Andreas Åberg, 52, construction worker, Sweden