EU pride, and the view from 1970s Brussels

The other day, Boris Johnson promised to stop EU migrants from treating the UK “as if it’s part of their own country” (Jo Swinson: PM’s ‘dog-whistle’ tactics putting EU citizens at risk, 9 December). That’s exactly what the European Union has allowed me to do: treat 27 other countries as if they are, in a small but important way, my own. It’s one of the greatest things about the EU.

As a teenager, when I travelled in northern Europe and discovered the rows of colourful houses and the beautiful rivers and forests for the first time, I felt proud, because, although I was Greek, these rivers and forests and the colourful houses were also part of my homeland. When I marvel at the Piazza San Marco in Venice or the Piazza dei Miracoli in Pisa, I feel proud, because although I am Greek, these pinnacles of human achievement are also part of my culture and identity.

When I had to choose whether to do my PhD in the UK or in the US, the fact that the UK felt a bit like my own country was important to me. And when Brexit is finally completed, and the part of my identity that makes Britain feel like my European home is violently torn away, this will be a great personal loss, and eventually a reason to search for opportunities elsewhere.
Kira Gartzou-Katsouyanni
PhD candidate, London School of Economics

• Katherine Butler (From Brussels, Brexit feels like a ship that has already sailed, Journal, 10 December) brings some much-needed historical perspective to the fraught UK-EU relationship. My memories go back even further than hers, to when I was (briefly) a correspondent in Brussels immediately after the UK joined what was then the European Economic Community in 1973. I was given some invaluable advice by the then correspondent for the Daily Express: “The only way you’ll get your stuff in the paper is if the first words of your story are ‘British housewives today face…’”

Plus ça change, as we will soon no longer be allowed to say.
Robin Lustig
London

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