When I walk down my greened street, I find that after the turbulent years in which part of the former EU has separated, it has finally brought peace and clarity. The stricter legislation in force in the slimmed-down EEC is bearing fruit in many areas. Safety and trust are slowly returning. Utopias about integration have been thrown overboard and Western core values seem to be returning. External borders are tightly guarded and the EEC has an equal policy of quality of life rather than quantity. Fortunately, we have resisted the rise of billionaires and oligarchs in the 1930s and find ourselves in a prosperous, pragmatic and happy continent where we have gone through the eye of the needle.