I was interested by the idea that artists working in a totalitarian dictatorship or tsarist autocracy are secretly and slightly shamefully envied by artists who work in freedom. They have the gratification of intense interest: the authorities want to put them in jail while there are younger readers for whom what they write is pure oxygen.
The E.U. is more than just a trade organization or a common market it is a guarantee of democracy freedom justice and human rights. Nations cannot stay in the E.U. if they do not respect these guarantees.