Our area has quite a lot to be grateful to the EU for, more than 2 billion euros in fact.
Given the current debate taking place about our relationship with Europe in the wake of David Cameron wielding his veto last week I thought it salient to remember how Merseyside has benefitted from the EU.
Been to a show at the arena? The EU helped pay for that. Caught a flight to Ibiza or Lanzarote from Liverpool John Lennon Airport? The EU helped pay for the airport's expansion.
In fact the EU has been involved in funding most of the major projects that have taken place across the region in the past decade and a half.
Walk through any town centre across Merseyside and you will be able to spot investments that were paid for with European funding.
The region's love affair with continental funding started in 1994 when £700m of funding was allocated under the Objective 1 programme. In 2000 another £928m followed. Between 2007 and 2013 the North West is sharing another £700m, and Europe is set to agree to £450m for Merseyside to be spent between 2014 and 2020.
Objective 1 contributed funds to more than 1,802 projects between 2000 and 2008 - that is a whole lot of things that might would not have happened without the EU.
The investment in Merseyside has seen the country move from one of the poorest areas in Europe into a "transition region". That means its GDP is between 75% and 90% of the EU average.
Cllr Flo Clucas, former deputy leader of Liverpool council and an expert on Europe, in 2009 said: "In 1994, something wonderful happened, we were given Objective 1 status.
"If we had not had it, my city would have gone into a decline and we would never have recovered."
In the same year Phil Woolas, former North West minister, predicted Merseyside's population would have plummeted by up to 20%.
"The big point of Objective 1 is actually what would it have been like if we had not got it," he said.
"My guess is that it would have been pretty disastrous, and Merseyside would not be in the position it is in today.
"The population would probably have been 10% to 20% less than it is.
"Investment would have probably been half what it is, and the city would have been written off. Because it lost confidence in the 1980s, people had lost confidence in it.
"Objective 1 has meant that we have been able to get money from right across the European Union to create a prosperous trading partner."
Critics of the EU will point out that the UK puts far more into the EU than it takes out.
But do you really think any UK government would have handed over quite so much money to regions like Merseyside to spend on its own priorities?
