I was born behind the iron curtain but I got lucky. It’s why I’m voting in these European elections

I think of the fear and empty fridges in Ceausecu's Romania - and I'll be thinking of Ukraine and Georgia on 9 June

It's December 1989 and a young woman is sitting in a Bucharest theatre, watching a sold-out performance of Hamlet. The air is laden with danger. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," Marcellus is about to say. Nearly 35 years later that woman, my mum, still remembers how electric the atmosphere inside the theatre was.

Everyone knew exactly what the line meant, but no one uttered a peep. It was common knowledge that secret police agents were watching. Any hint of support for Marcellus's words guaranteed arrest. On that day in early December, my mum couldn't have imagined that within weeks, the Ceauescu dictatorship would be over. That we'd always have enough food in the fridge, freedom of speech, freedom of choice over our bodies, agency. That support for a line of Shakespeare wouldn't mean arrest. That we'd be free. That I'd be sitting here, writing this, to you.