About 10 days ago I was on a train from Lyon to Geneva. I was with Lindsie Hill who had accompanied me for the day to visit my brother, Drew - an LDS missionary in the Switzerland Geneva mission. As we finished up our day trip to the 2nd-largest French city and arrived at the train station, we realized that the last train to Geneva was a TGV train and that we needed to purchase reservations. We realized twice as fast that there was no way we were going to get that reservation purchased before the train left. There were at least 2000 people in the train station lobby near the ticket counters, and we had 10 minutes to board the train before it left. So, we hopped on and hoped no ticket checker came by to fine us. Fortunately no one did.
In order to remain inconspicuous, and because we didn't have a seat reserved, we stuck in the back near the baggage cart. While we were back there, we made friends with some of the other passengers. Per the French etiquette we learned in class and in "60 million frenchmen," I didn't ask their names, but I did learn a lot about the Swiss attitude toward the European Union.
The first young man we spoke with was a 19-year-old gentleman from Lausanne. He spoke English quite well and was very complementary on how I had progressed with my French. We asked him if he thought that Switzerland should become a part of the EU, if doing so was a good idea, etc. This young man was very adamant in his opinion that Switzerland would not be part of the EU. What's more, he said he felt very strongly that Switzerland should not be a part of the EU. He felt that Switzerland was doing very well on its own and that EU had nothing significant to offer Switzerland in return for its membership. As I recall, he also said that the banks there made sure that no one would attack Switzerland, and until things changed significantly, he thought things should stay like that.
Another gentleman was of the same opinion, but he was not Swiss. He was French. He thought along the same lines, but thought that the days of a divided Europe were numbered. He said he was of the opinion that Europe would eventually become a U.S. of Europe, and that slowly, little by little, the European nations would give up pieces of their sovereignty until there was none left. He thought that the idea of a European superstate was still a long way off, but that it was an inevitability.
So what do I think? I think that this will only happen in the very long term. If the common market is the goal, then that goal has been achieved in large part. Goods and services are allowed to move across borders without problems. Even through Switzerland and its neighbors are divided and do not share a market, Switzerland still sends out much of what it makes to Europe without many of the tariffs. It is also part of the Schengen agreement. As of now, I cannot see the overriding European identity overriding national identity in any sense, business or otherwise. When we went to Cailler, they were always presented as Cailler of SWITZERLAND, and held that Swiss banner high.
In short, I do not see the European identity overriding anything on the end of the consumer. The residents of the European nations are still very nationalistic. As for producers, they may see themselves in a National perspective, but they now have an international market. For producers, that's terrific. Consumers win too because they are presented with variety. However, the idea of Europeanism, especially in Switzerland, takes a back seat to the national identity.
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