Brexit: Freedom or Tragedy?

David WRIGHT * Former Deputy Director General of MARKT (Market and Services), European Commission; Chair, EUROFI. Contact : DJWcastello82@gmail.com. I am most grateful to Pervenche Berès and Sylvie Matherat for their kind invitation to write an article on Brexit and its effects on the European Union (EU). Both have contributed a great deal to the process of European integration over many years and both are firm believers in a strong and united EU.I also write this article as a convinced and dedicated European and in a personal capacity.

The Brexit referendum vote of June 2016 has unleashed powerful, new political and economic forces in the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU). Why and how did this happen?

The British people were never told the truth about the EU – neither its raison d'être as an international political organization to build lasting peace on the continent of Europe nor the benefits of close European cooperation in an interconnected, multi-polar world based on legally binding treaties.

Euroscepticism in the UK, built up over forty years, was left unchallenged by generations of politicians and stoked up, relentlessly, by a hostile and aggressive British press.

There is no evidence whatsoever that the UK has prospered outside the EU, on the contrary politically and economically it has regressed. It has become more untrustworthy, economically unstable and less influential internationally.

European integration, however, has advanced in some significant ways since the UK has departed from the EU, but the EU has also lost some important British assets and qualities.

Brexit: liberty or tragedy? A costly tragedy for the British people that will last generations.

I worked for the European Commission for 34 years up to 2012 and have continued my support for this remarkable political project ever since, inter alia by chairing the biggest European financial services conference called EUROFI, previously headed up by a great European public servant, Jacques de Larosière. Entering the European Commission in 1977, I was one of the first British intakes into the European Institutions, the United Kingdom (UK) having joined the European Community in 1973. Over the years, as my career in the Commission developed and as my work became more important, I have evolved to feel European to my core.To describe this, over five decades, I have admired, watched and contributed to parts of the process of rational European integration - an immensely difficult process, an unending one, and always one with new crises and…