Despite its shortcomings, the EU is one of the strongest alliances of sovereign nations in human history. It provides its Member States with the means to both defend their interests at a global level and to address the negative effects of globalisation. [7] For example, in the EU we have the tools to address tax arbitrage by multinational corporations.
And EU regulation, together with the European Court of Justice, provides the strongest possible reassurance that openness does not promote rent-seeking and does not harm consumers. Our response to “America first” can therefore only be “Europe united”, as the German foreign minister Heiko Maas recently put it.