This is too complicated for me at the moment. I'll just say that attempting to think about this requires careful attention to the various myths that it's all wrapped up in. I've been trying to work myself up to a post about the fundamental problem with the EU: it has no creation myth. Ireland has some sort of myth wound up with 1916 and rebels and so on (not 1921, which was the actual independence war because that led straight into the civil war and we don't like to think about that ...); the US has the American dream and the War of Independence and the Wild West; France has the revolutions and so on; England has the crown and a thousand years without invasion. What has the EU? We also need to worry about the myths about the various cultures both historical and contemporary.