Pathetic as that is - I will go against my instincts and put some more appropriate context of the here and now to it - this scenario is more fitting I think:Obviously. Without quantifying value or worth it‘s meaningless.
Before me right now I have a Montblanc pen and two cheap biros. Do I discard the one in favour of the other two? Do I explore keeping the Montblanc and having the other two as well? Is two better than one in this case?
In this scenario, EU countries have the Montblanc and a cheap biro. We chucked the Montblanc away, kept one cheap biro and put in an offer for the other one.
There is this fella down the pub and every time me and my mates walk in - he bangs on about this fucking posh pen he used to have - Mont Blanc I think he calls it. Anyway - he goes on and on about how good it was - proper quality apparently, but others look on in sadness at his bleating.
The thing is - they know that:
a) he does not have it any more and he will never be able to get another one and therefore all he is doing is boring the shit out of everyone and
b) he has a shit memory anyway - so many others knew it was a shit pen. In reality he just fantasises about the fucking thing and forgets how it was way over-priced and that there are far better and more reliable models available nowadays. In fact the reviews were so bad that people got together and decided to remove it as an option.
But fuck - you know that he is still going to go on about it, as he sits in a a corner talking to a reducing number of tolerant mates. Best to just smile and put up with it - at least he supports a proper team, although it is hard to get him to speak about football due to his obsession with that fucking pen
But - FFS, whatever you do, don't let him hear you mention some other brand of pen - you will only set him off again............