Why the EU matters to this Irishman

The benefits of the EU are obvious. Freedom to move and work, negotiating trade deals as 500 million instead of 5 million and ensuring consumer safety across the continent.

There are practical things in our lives too – Erasmus sponsors students across Europe, roam has finally burned and we can visit any EU embassy and be confident we'll get help. We can also thank it for backing up human rights and rule of law, allowing scientists to share research and keeping countries' intertwined enough that we have stopped killing each other.

Indeed, we aren't magically a "post-conflict" continent. We aren't especially civilized and enlightenment wasn't suddenly embedded in our DNA after the horrors of the second World War. We remember the wars and we remember why they happened, but often we forget why they haven't happened since. We built institutions to keep it this way - people have been carefully, imperfectly and intensely working to these ends for the past 60 years.

But it’s the idea that I care about, the idea that we should be facing down problems constructively and working together, instead of whimpering and trying to hide from them behind borders and misguided nationalist notions. It's the optimism of an incredibly unlikely project – and don't for one second take it for granted the EU exists. The fact that it hasn't fallen apart is insane.

An organisation of countries that have been murdering each other for centuries coming together to pool resources, sovereignty and ideas? There has never been anything like it in the history of man before. It exists at a critical moment too, when we have to tackle problems that can only be dealt with internationally – climate change, fair taxation, decentralised international terrorism.

It is easier to divide people than to bring them together. It is easier to tear things down than it is to build them. It is easier to whimper and panic in the face of a challenge than to face it. But that is not what the European Union is about. The EU brings together instead of dividing. The EU builds things when others would tear them down. And more than anything else, the EU faces its challenges with the ambition and determination that the European people deserve.

I believe in the EU so deeply that I decided to move to Brussels in 2014 to contribute to it, where I now work as EU Affairs Communications Consultant. I encourage other Irish people to give it a try too. The feeling of being part of something greater at a critical point in history is palpable. We need more Irish people to make our voice heard in the EU institutions, to shape the future of Europe.

Originally published as part of "Irish in Europe on the EU" in the Irish Times, Wednesday, July 5th, 2017.