Reminds me of a relative in the US who truly believed that in Eastern Germany people were allowed to get only one pair of shoes per year.

Well put, by someone who comments open source elsewhere:
Of course EU is an Imperial Project. It needs to expand to avoid corroding. It offered Ukraine an Associate status which became law in 2014. 1 January 2016, Ukraine joined the DCFTA with the EU. Ukrainian citizens were granted visa-free travel to the Schengen Area for up to 90 days during any 180-day period on 11 June 2017

What EU wanted was achieved by bribing elites as in Turkey - "Consultancies", "Think Tanks", "Seminars", and the glitterati are hooked to deliver the masses. EU is an Elitist Project which is how Jean Monnet and Arthur Salter conceived it - to erode popular control over politics in favour of a technocratic elite.

The Project is based on hollowing out national sovereignty and creating Plato's Guardians with their own schools (Boris Johnson and VdL went to the same one in Brussels) and develop a Managerial Caste - it needs to expand to gain resources.

My take: I am curious to see what happens in 90 days. Probably the EU will make a extension to the residency permit as they did once for Iraqis and Afghans. (Are they still putting those on planes now? Wouldn't be surprised.)

Add to the mix that the EU has been actively building semi private universities around the Med in the latest years. They 'want' to revive Euromed, but under a US umbrella.