People across Europe give their verdict on the EU and explain why they believe it needs a rethink
Peter McGowan, 74, British pensioner
I am from a family of steel workers and in the 70s I was a union official at the steel works in Corby, and then became a Labour councillor. Harold Wilson was in power and the first steps were being made to develop a strategy of free trade through what was then the EEC. I was a real supporter of that strategy and wrote a column in the local paper saying as much. I thought a free trade agreement would be useful, not just for the steel industry but for all industries in the country, bringing more opportunities and more trade. The feeling at that time was one of friendly co-operation, and there was also a sense that the European Union would prevent future wars.
I was born in 1939 and growing up we were very conscious of the damage war had done. One of the good things about the idea of the European Union was that it would eliminate that kind of fear, so people could live in peace and prosper. We were looking for a prosperity of trading nations, a bigger market for our products and partnerships with other nations.
In the late 70s I became the deputy leader of Corby borough council and we encouraged friendship agreements between Corby and towns in Germany and France. I had very positive relationships and encouraged others in the town to develop them too.
When the steel works started to be closed we worked hard to make sure that Corby had access to European funds to help it come out of that situation. And it did make a real difference, with money made available to purchase the steel site and have it redeveloped for alternative industrial uses. But by the 90s things had really changed, there were repeated doses of legislation and decisions being taken in Brussels that had a direct impact on the council's ability to perform its role. It became like an octopus, with its tentacles reaching into every area of our lives and I was not in favour of that at all. I started asking myself, "Who is making these decisions? How are they being taken? Who has the right to make decisions that effect our daily lives?"
I would like to see us withdraw from the EU, I can't really see any alternative. There are those trying to convince people that it would be detrimental to the UK economy if we did, but I don't think that's the case. We are an island who can trade quite easily with the rest of the world, and there is no reason we shouldn't be able to do that on our own terms. We've lost control and we have to get back to governing ourselves, which is why I joined Ukip, who have a commonsense approach to deal with these issues. We can't even deport terrorists from this country, because we are seeing European law superseding UK law, which I think is something a lot of past supporters could never have imagined. Europe has nothing to do with democracy any more, it is about officials being paid extraordinary salaries and no one knows how to do anything about that.
Bruno Cabral, Portuguese freelance television producer
"I joined the group Fuck the Troika (the trio of EU, International Monetary Fund and European central bank officials) months ago when they organised a huge demonstration of people associated with culture. We managed to pull together more than 20 musical groups and the protest started with a symphony orchestra. It's something we haven't seen in Portugal since April 1974 (when the dictatorship ended). I met people I knew and who I never imagined would take to the streets.
I cannot conceive of politics as something that consists of going to vote every few years and then leaving our lives in the hands of politicians. The group Fuck the Troika belongs to no political party. It is a broad collective, including many classes, views and generations united in a common goal: to remove this conservative government of Pedro Passos Coelho, who is a puppet of the troika, and also to remove the troika and to end these austerity policies that do nothing but increasingly impoverish the population. It isn't true that these cuts are inevitable. This was a trap of the right, a pretext to win elections. And people are starting to cotton on to this deception – that this is not the solution, it solves nothing.
The problem also is that the Portuguese Socialist party, like other socialist Europeans who came to the third way, disappointed and disillusioned people. Fuck the Troika has kind of replaced the unions, gathering people together under a union flag. The unions aren't to blame; it's that social reality, with everyone precarious, everyone standing still, everyone working without fixed contracts, has got well beyond the unions now.
Christopher Dague, 39, French postman
When I joined the post office at the start of the 1990s, the Europe that I discovered was the Europe of Jacques Delors. A Europe with a proper project: to build the single market to resist globalisation, but without forgetting to build a proper social base.
Twenty years later, the signals that the EU send out seem to me to be negative: the establishment of a European citizenry is no further advanced, it's even become a time of reverting to nation states and the parliament – the only institution directly elected by the people – is in retreat.
I've been a member of the CFDT union since 2003 and have been an official at the Paris branch for a year. The CFDT is a progressive pro-European union, but don't assume that the pro-European idea transmits automatically from one activist to the next. Questions about Europe have become so complex that they are now the preserve of experts and are not really debated by our members.
When we bring up European rights before a labour court, the more exotic it sounds the more heavily it is rejected. It is hard in these conditions to remain enthusiastic. That is why I have started to organise guided visits of European institutions in Brussels for our members. There, you get a better sense of how things are progressing, or at least that the European officials and civil servants we criticise are serious people who are trying to move things forward.
So it's not Europe per se that disappoints me but the decisions that are taken. The process itself, with the heads of state who act alone and without accountability and also the politics of austerity at all costs which is conducted throughout the continent.
I don't want to define myself as Eurosceptic because I know that the European project is a long and difficult process. I am also aware that when the majority are of the right, the policy choices will not always necessarily suit me. I am a bit disappointed, but forgiving. We, French union members, have already had our problems agreeing with five EU partners with divergent interests. Now we have 27.
Roberto Brazzale, 50, Italian cheese entrepreneur
Our family has produced butter and cheese from the earliest days of the Republic of Venice in 700. We wanted to develop new and innovative ideas that are impossible in Italy due to the scarcity of land and because Italy is so hostile to business and to innovation. So in 2000 we discovered the extraordinary agricultural region of Moravia in the Czech Republic. An ideal environment to develop our Italian dairy tradition. There we created Gran Moravia, the latest evolution of grana cheese, vegetarian and eco-friendly.
The entry of the Czech Republic in the EU has broken down all obstacles and today we export to 54 countries. Freedom of trade is necessary for the peace and prosperity of the people, but it is not necessary to have the same currency. In the Czech Republic they have the crown and we do not find this a problem.
We don't believe that Italy fits in the euro. A single currency requires a single budget or a very strong uniformity, which has never existed between Italy and Germany. To believe that Italy can "Germanise" itself thanks to a fiscal compact is naive. Italy cannot be reformed. The majority of the people and corporations do not want reforms because they would affect entrenched privileges. The unions then block the modernisation. The productive part of the country is now held hostage by a majority culture and politics. Only devaluations in the past could rebalance imports and exports, but today that is impossible because of the euro.
As an insurance, we filled our warehouses with parmesan, a sort of hard currency safe haven, because we think the Germans will pull the plug on the European Central Bank and at that point the only dramatic option left for Italy will be to come out of the euro. The later it happens, the worse it will be. The social problems we have are not linked to exiting the euro, but to the imbalances that built up from the moment we adopted it. But leaving the euro does not necessarily mean leaving the EU. The EU remains vital, but we need to rethink it. The parliament has become more bureaucratic and demagogic, politically correct and an obstable to European competitiveness, draining nation states and depressing the livelihoods of its extraordinary people.
Paulina Bednarz-Łuczewska, teaches management at the Kozminski University in Warsaw
I am surprised by the EU's intellectual apathy; this is where my disappointment comes from most of all. I hear complaints about the lack of a European public sphere, an intellectual exchange, when in fact such a sphere exists but it is grotesque in form and substance – we are following discussions and decisions made by bureaucrats, but we do not discuss the aims or directions we want to take. Our European political life has been reduced to cheering on ritual discussions hiding the real play of interests or to listening to the bureaucratic machine of the European Union.
If you look at the mainstream of this deformed political sphere, it turns out it lacks narratives and ideas that would be able to mobilise people, give birth to new political movements, fuel innovations. To give an example: like almost all women, I am interested in the social, cultural and moral challenges that arise together with the redefinition of social roles of men and women. This is a very complex and multi-dimensional problem, dramatic at times and concerning almost all people – one of the great intellectual adventures of our times. Meanwhile, the EU reduces this dimension to boring administrative slogans like "gender mainstreaming" or clumsy programmes aimed at chasing heresy rather than provoking debate and looking for solutions. However, these complex challenges do not allow themselves to be answered with pure canvassing.
Among we Europeans, there is no willingness to look for rhetoric or traditions able to mobilise, to warm up hearts for the sake of common actions. I was raised on the mythology of Polish Solidarity, great social movements, but also discussions and debates concerning fundamental matters. I expected that unified Europe, enriched by the dialogue of the east and the west, the south and the north would be able – as it used to be – to coin new ideas through debates, ideas attractive for the whole world. However, it turned out that the EU bureaucracy could be likened to a toxic teacher in a communist school, telling us what we should believe.
What I find extremely inspiring in the Polish tradition, as well as the tradition present in the whole region, is the history of intellectual and cultural struggle with Christianity. Polish intellectuals either hated or loved Polish Catholicism, which, together with exposing our culture to other currents, resulted in the creation of a very rich cultural texture. I could not believe it, and reacted with amusement that with time was replaced by terror, when I learned that the EU administration treats the word "Christianity" like a taboo, a childhood incident that has to be superseded as a result of some unclear fears.
We get rid of traditions that are able to inspire and fertilise, in order not to free ourselves from fears and prejudices. Europe ceased to be a source of cultural model attractive for the rest of the world.
And one who still believes …
Rolf Gesell, 43, German engineer
What this new party, Alternative for Germany, is demanding – to pull out of the euro – makes no sense, and is counterproductive. If we did that we would endanger the wonderful relations we have with our European states.
The euro is right and proper, even if at the moment I can't say much good about it. We Europeans should not believe that if we were individual states we would be able to play any kind of role in the world. On the contrary, we act much more together. The long-term goal has to be to get to a type of world community, composed of large blocks of strong domestic markets: America, Asia, Europe, and later Africa.
Monetary union suffers from too much selfishness. Everyone is trying to get the most they can, to the detriment of the whole. It's like in construction: a few large companies determine the technical standards for the entire industry and the smaller ones get left behind. Or like in the financial sector: how can it be that we must all protect the speculation of a few banks? There's something wrong with the law: some people were clearly on the right bodies and exploited that. The banks pocketed the profits and shared the losses around.
Greece should not have been included in the euro and in Italy there's too much corruption. Spain had its housing bubble. Should we help them even more now? Yes, because we still have it quite good. But we can't be their crutch for every problem. Eventually, they have to stand on their own two feet. I have to do the same, as a business owner.
It looks very bad for the euro. I don't know what can be done to save it. I only know that Germany has made some of the right moves, and Angela Merkel has made her fair share of those. Other countries have missed the boat. We have no other choice: we must support Europe and currency union, even if some day we all go down together.
There can be no return to the individual state. The continent must grow together until it is like the US. That will take time. Until it happens, there will be another great crash, an economic crisis worse than 1929. The crisis we have had since 2008 hasn't actually been that bad. We Germans can hardly feel it and even in Greece or Portugal it hasn't hit everyone. Look at real estate in the Algarve: it's at Munich levels.
Angela Merkel has punched above her weight in European matters. I'm not usually a fan of hers, but there is no one better in view.
Politicians have it really hard. Unfortunately, many of them haven't learned any other profession, so for them it's always just a question of keeping their job. Before it was a vocation – parties pulled in professional people. Today, it's a job no one wants any more."
Interviews by Alexandra Topping of the Guardian, Antonio Jiménez Barca of El Paîs in Lisbon, Benoît Vitkine of Le Monde, Eleonora Vallin, Adam Leszczynski and Thomas Kirchner of Süddeutsche Zeitung
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