May 9 is Europe Day. Did you know that? I did, but I had to be reminded by my editor. I have to confess that despite being a keen European, Europe Day holds little significance for me in comparison to St. Patrick's Day or Burn's Night, the two major celebrations of my Celtic ancestry. I am a Celt, but I am also British and I am certainly European and so I shall celebrate Europe Day.

But why May 9? It is said that on May 9 1950 the first move was made towards the creation of what is now known as the European Union. In Paris that day, the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman read a declaration calling European countries to pool together their coal and steel production as "the first foundation of a European federation".

Of course we Brits have had a peculiar relationship with the European Union yet ironically, the Union is in fact a notion borne of British patriotism and democracy, involving one of Britain's greatest icons, in what were the darkest hours of modern British and European history.

In Andrew Marr's magnificent 'A History of Modern Britain', the opening pages offer a gripping drama, the outcome of which has led to decades of European freedom and democracy. We are in the Cabinet office in London but on a different day in May, this time May 28, 1940. Here sit two Tories, Chamberlain and Halifax with two Labour men, Clement Attlee and Arthur Greenwood, and in the Chair sits Winston Churchill.

These five comprised the War Cabinet and the question before them was simple - was it time to do a deal with Hitler? The two Tories were in favour, whilst Attlee and Greenwood were for fighting on and for refusing to negotiate or surrender. The casting vote was Churchill's and the rest as they say is history. Nazi totalitarianism was eventually defeated by another unlikely coalition put together by Churchill, this time involving himself, Roosevelt and Stalin and so the road to democracy in western Europe was laid and eventually completed. Let's not forget that if Churchill was anything he was a great coalitionist, someone who was prepared to work with others from a different perspective for the greater good and this is important as we consider just how British the European Union is.

But would Churchill have supported the European partnership that exists today? Well whilst he was unsure about the community as proposed by Schuman, there is no doubt he believed in a union of European nations. Here we have an extract of a speech Churchill gave in Zurich immediately after the end of WW2,

'I wish to speak to you about the tragedy of Europe... There is a remedy which would make all Europe, or the greater part of it free and happy. It is to recreate the European family, and to provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe.'

So the European Union as it is today, warts and all, can be traced back to that most British icon, Churchill and those most British values of patriotism and democracy. If this is so, what's our beef (sorry!) with the EU?

It seems to me that for some of the older generation there still exists a mistrust of things German and French and that I understand, as anyone in their late fifties or older will remember the austerity and fears of the post-war years, perhaps the war itself. For younger people those experiences are simply not there and so we have to look at the role of the British media and its quite bizarre campaigns against the EU run in recent years and the effect these have had on British public opinion and on British politicians.

So let's nail that other notion that 'Maggie sorted 'em out'. Well of course Margaret Thatcher did indeed dig in her heels, in her relations with our European cousins, particularly (and successfully) over Britain's budget payments, but it should not be forgotten, as Andrew Marr reminds us, that Margaret Thatcher campaigned vigourously for the UK entry to the EEC 'in a spectacularly hideous jumper with flags of the members states knitted across her breasts'! Furthermore it was her government that signed the Single European Act and agreed to sterling joining the European exchange rate mechanism. Maggie's subsequent isolationist policies were opportunistic and populist, not borne of some deep-rooted anti-Europeanism. They led to Britain losing influence at the European table at a crucial time in the development of the Union.

Back to the media. Did you know that in London there is a European Commission press office whose function it is to monitor the daft EU stories printed in the British press? We've all come across them and amusing though they may be, the effect of these Euromyths, is that there exists at best great confusion amongst the UK public about the value of the EU and at worst an outright antipathy towards it. Let's have a look at some of the sillier myths and the truth behind them.

'Hands off our barmaids' boobs' The Sun
The EU has declared a crackpot war on busty barmaids - by trying to ban them from wearing low-cut tops. Po-faced penpushers have deemed it a HEALTH HAZARD for bar girls to show too much cleavage.

In fact EU rules on optical radiation, do not tell people what they can wear, or ban low-cut tops. They instead require bosses to assess the risk of skin and retina damage for employees who work in the sun all day. This is a pressing concern, given that in the UK alone there are 69,000 new cases of skin cancer diagnosed each year. How the risk to employees will be assessed, and what measures should be taken if there is deemed to be one, will be decided in the UK by the Health and Safety Executive.

'Real happiness is a pig in a toy shop' The Times
Farmers throughout the country have 90 days to put a toy in every pigsty or face up to three months in jail.

In fact, under EU law pigs must be given material to fulfil an important behavioural need, something we animal-loving Brits would like, one would think. Examples of such materials given under the directive are straw, hay, and compost - there was no requirement for pigs to be given toys!

My point is this. Firstly, the whole EU project is more British than some would have you believe and whilst there are undoubted problems with the institutions, the EU does what it does reasonably well, despite the best efforts of the British press and some politicians to badmouth it.

So love it or loathe it, the EU is here to stay and for we British ex-pats in Spain, UK membership of the EU has enabled us to live the life we lead as citizens of Europe. If only one of Thatcher, Major, Blair or Brown had had the cojones to sign up for that pesky euro, we'd not be moaning about the rubbish exchange rates we are all getting at the moment. But that's another discussion for another time!

Happy Europe Day!