Beyond any question, Erasmus is one of the key achievements of the European Union, one of the best-known and most widely accepted: the word alone generates a kind of enthusiasm everywhere. Sovereignists of all stripes and, in particular, their followers, ought to be well aware that the idea germinated within the services of the European Commission alone, the institution that they glibly accuse of all evils.
The story takes us back to the 1980s. The Delors Commission was hard at work....