A European political union intrudes on its members’ sovereignty  Many of the policies of the political union intrude on national legislation. In many cases, EU policies go against national traditions or redefine laws that were already functional. Occasionally EU policies even cause direct harm, when countries have less freedom to tailor them to their own conditions.  During the past few years, the Commission’s powers have included monitoring Member States implementation of austerity policies in return for bailouts. However, everyone, including the IMF, agrees that austerity was unsuccessful and has seriously hampered recovery (7). Being a part of a political union inevitably means that sacrifices have to be made and this often intrudes on national sovereignty by reducing he room for manoeuvre of national governments.  Intrusion by the EU would be justified if it creates substantially better laws or solid trade benefits; however, regulations on the shape of cucumbers (8) do neither of these. The EU should not have legislative power on these areas.  (7) Blanchard, Olivier; Leigh, Daniel. “Growth Forecast Errors and Fiscal Multipliers”, IMF Working Paper. January 2013.   (8) Geiger, Susanne. “The strange curvature of the cucumber”, The German Times. January 2007.