The EU is at the very best a tower of Babel, at worst a sneaky "nazi" project. In any case only mental retards can come up with the idea of merging 28 divergent cultures (+ an indeterminate number of future entrants) into one (monster) multi-cultural entity.
Napoleon, the dictator, the thief, the guy who did not give a f***about the French so-called revolutionary ideals (fraternity, egality + one more buzz word), and only pillaged the countries he invaded, (all of the Louvre is Italian stuff robbed by him) needed to use FORCE to temporarily create a "fake" common entity (under French rule).
Ask the Maltese what they thought of French rule between 1799 and 1801 before the Brits kicked them off the island.


Whither an EU police force and a standing army when the Eurozone financial regulatory system collapses?


The Romans did infinitely better, and gave the Roman citizenship to rather huge numbers but, there again, they needed legions.
How many “legions” does the EU require today?
And when the legions were no longer effective, because of the perverse Christian religion, the self-serving, thieving imperial bureaucracy back at HQ (like that in Brussels) and most of all the dramatic acceptance of the barbarians (Goths) inside their borders (perhaps Muslim culture today), everything broke down.
The consequences of the break down we still call the "dark ages".


One of the key elements of the fall of Rome, was because numerous Emperors chose not to balance the books. They issued more and more coinage (with their head on it) with the hope that just the name alone would support its value ( think of QE x 1000) Eventually, that bluff was called by all those armies and governors and regions that were "Roman" by order, but without a single Italian-like bloke in the ranks.
Maybe a Western European "club" (not federal) that consisted of the traditional power nations of Europe is a tolerable concept - mixing their talents and general moral commonality.
This would, of course, exclude the EBloc/Balkans and the periphery toward Turkey. Is it likely? No.

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Dave