Europe’s future - Barnier must wake up to EU’s failings

WHEN Michel Barnier next engages with David Davis, his British counterpart for Brexit negotiations, he might have the humility to acknowledge that not everything is right with the EU and that a lot of work needs to be done if it is to become a union of independent states that we can all be proud of – with or without the UK.

Many EU residents will know from painful experience the shambolic response by Brussels to the global financial crisis and how the one-trick pony of austerity was employed to address it, with disastrous results for some member states, especially Greece. The fact is that the EU is fraying at the edges economically, socially and even legally.

The inner city of London has three times the EU average level of wealth, while parts of Bulgaria are 10 times poorer, a disparity evident throughout the EU.