We Need More Europe

If you don’t know me, I am an Italian who just moved to Germany who lived in France for a while in the past. While this might just be confusing, it’s not really important now. The relevant part is that I had to move across Europe and I had to deal with a lot of bureaucracy in the different countries I lived in.

Each of the countries I lived is characterised by complex laws and rules to follow related to immigration, taxes, social security, etc. The problem is that while we, as Europeans, can live and work in every EU country without the need of having a VISA, this does not come without pain. Rules about immigration did not change when the EU was formed, at least not in a level that makes the process of changing country in EU simple.There’s no real special treatment for us EU citizen when moving between countries.

Things get even worse when talking about taxes: every state which is member of the EU has his own rules that are completely different from the others. There’s also no common general taxation and no special rights for people changing countries frequently. If this is not enough, a lot of people in EU (especially in France, Italy, Spain) do not speak English and a lot of people do not want to learn English. There’s no official law requiring member states to teach English to a level at which people can speak it as a native language and there is no need to write official documents in English too.

This makes me think: if Europe really wants to be competitive, if we want to improve the talent exchange in our countries, we need more Europe. A Europe who believes that the different states are made to be together, because that’s the only possible future. I believe in it, let’s hope it will be the future our children will live in.