Europeans lack visceral attachment to the EU. Does it matter?

I n ancient Greece poetry was regulated so as to prevent excessive passions from corrupting the social order. On April 29th a small crowd in Aachen, a German town near the Belgian border, turned out for ein Poetry Slam in which amateur bards were asked to riff on, of all things, the European Union. A few dozen mostly grey-haired types, including Charlemagne, listened tactfully as a trio of youngsters rhymed one elongated compound word with another. A local “TikTok political influencer”—not a profession Plato would have recognised—served as host and ensured the social order was indeed not corrupted. Streamed from down the road in Maastricht, eight politicians from Denmark, Luxembourg and beyond engaged in an old-fashioned contest of rhetoric ahead of the upcoming European elections on June 6th-9th.