SO the European Union is a "political project"? At least, that's the view of the people who oppose Wear Valley District Council's right to fly the EU flag outside the Civic Centre in Crook.

Well, yes, it probably is. In the same sort of way as the union of Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland is a "political project", if a rather older one.

They were both set up as a means of pooling the interests of a collection of disparate nations which (in spite of mutual suspicion and many causes of disagreement) yet had many things in common. They both involve sharing sovereignty in the interests of a greater good. They are both ways of giving a stronger voice to smaller nations than any of them would have on their own. And we are after all (like it or not) an integral part of both projects. Shouldn't we then be doing our best to make a success of them?

There's a lot wrong with the way the EU's run. Even the most passionate European would have to admit that. But in my view that's a reason for reforming it and making it work better, rather than turning up our noses and saying we'll have nothing to do with it.

Many years ago we spent a family holiday in a cottage in a village in Alsace in north-east France. The lady who owned the house had lived in that pretty village all her life. When she was born, it was in France. In her girlhood, it was annexed by Germany. Suddenly, they were all made to speak German, to behave as if they'd never been French. Then the war ended and the village became French again.

That lady was the most passionate pro-European I've ever come across. She'd had more than enough of war, of disputes about what land belonged to whom. She just wanted to be allowed to live her life in peace. It was there, in that region of ever-changing borders, that the whole European project made real sense.

We've lately been remembering the dead of two World Wars. We think of the waste of young lives, the terrible suffering, the cruel things that were done, in the names of other nations and (sometimes) of our own.

And most of these things happened in the heart of Europe between the nations of Europe.

No European Project is going to wipe out all our differences. The French will always be French, the Germans, German. We will always be British; just as within the United Kingdom the Scots will always be Scottish, the Welsh, Welsh - and the people of the North-East, North-Easterners, shouting loudly for their region.

But surely it's better that our representatives should sit round a table, however tediously, however unproductively, and try to solve our problems by talking, rather than shouting from the sidelines with a stockpile of weapons at their elbows? Surely in these days of a global economy, global terrorism, global warming, it's a good thing that we work together to give a stronger voice to our nations than we would ever have working alone?

So I like to see the EU flag flying from our flagpoles. It speaks to me of friendship, or working together, of trying to make a better world. We're nowhere near achieving it yet. But it's a hope worth striving for.

Published: 01/12/2005