He had already foreseen, back in the 1920s, the threats posed to peace, and even to civilisation, by a divided and mutually hostile group of countries. He advocated a united Europe. And during the Second World War, while in exile in Switzerland, he wrote with great prescience that a single market and a single currency were the way to rebuild Europe.
The attempt to shield one European country from competition by lowering the competitiveness of another makes all of us weaker. Europe as a whole has to become more dynamic, more inventive and more productive. This is not a new concept; it was already at the heart of the Lisbon strategy.