The answers to those questions have a lot to do with convergence, although not only with economic convergence in the narrow sense of parallel trends in the hard data on productivity, labour costs, or whatever. It also has much to do with convergence in values, in beliefs and in aims. That is something which cannot be measured mathematically, but it is nevertheless important.
It is frightening, blood-red.” He went on: “Solving the problem of limiting the raison d’état and its relationship to morality is an issue that, although primarily affecting the future of small countries, will ultimately also determine the future of larger countries and the whole of mankind.” This rather grim background goes a long way in explaining the European approach to integration.