Any large organization becomes coopted by special interests that are not necessarily the member’s original purpose or in the member’s own interests. The EU is a “voluntary” Soviet style empire. It has a universal currency that is not in the interests of most of the individual states. It is seeking a military. What would the EU masters do with their military if a state decided to leave? Intimidate? Occupy? The EU was a very bad, Communist idea. It will end as the Soviet Empire ended.
As I recall it the current EU was established to stabilize industrial development between Northern and Southern Europe and create something akin to universal European citizenship with a bill of rights (as Europeans can understand such things).
Then there was this little bitty part even Americans don't usually understand here ~ the uniform commercial code. We have one. It's an interstate compact. Europe decided to use the existing structure in Brussels to create their own European uniform commercial code with top down force.
About 99% of EU cultural battles center on that code. The US, by avoiding top down force has no cultural battles with our version.
The result is the folks who used to manufacture volcanic goat cheese in France moved to California ~ lots of French goats there and volcanic ash!
They feel safe for the moment.
As American herds expand due to a new found like for goats and goat byproducts we'll see more French niche cheese makers move here to escape the EU standards that dictate that food must not knowingly cause cancer or damge your liver.
The fact the French let the EU interfere with cheese production is a sign of just how corrupt the EU has become.