Love Quote by Guy Verhofstadt

Verhofstadt’s line is doing the classic Brussels trick: turning a policy preference into a moral boundary. “At the heart” isn’t just geography or institutional design; it’s a claim about identity. The EU, in this framing, isn’t a convenient trading bloc that happens to share a flag-blue color palette. It’s a project with a core purpose, and protectionism is cast as a contaminant, not a negotiable lever.

The intent is defensive and preemptive. In periods of economic anxiety - after the financial crisis, during the eurozone turmoil, amid Brexit reverberations, or in today’s industrial-subsidy arms race - protectionism reappears dressed up as “strategic autonomy,” “fair trade,” or “defending jobs.” Verhofstadt is warning fellow Europeans not to confuse tactical industrial policy with a slide into national reflexes. He’s also signaling to markets and allies that the EU’s legitimacy still rests on openness: free movement, competition, and rules-based trade.

The subtext is intra-European as much as external. “We” is aimed at member states tempted to shield domestic champions and at populists who sell borders as economic policy. It’s a rebuke to the idea that Europe can survive by becoming 27 small fortresses cooperating only when convenient. For a federalist like Verhofstadt, protectionism isn’t merely inefficient - it’s anti-European because it privileges national discretion over shared rules.

It works rhetorically because it narrows the debate: you can argue about safeguards and subsidies, but you don’t get to relocate the EU’s center of gravity. That’s the pressure point.