There are jokes that the EU is Greater Germany, just the stealthy way to try to conquer Europe through creeping rules and regulation and financial controls imposed by Brussels and Germany.
To be fair, the french and British pushed the Germans into many of the EU rules and institutions. For instance the Euro was the deal that Mitterand struck with Helmut Kohl allowing German re-unification. the French and English and others thought that the increasing european union would contain Germany
“There are jokes that the EU is Greater Germany, just the stealthy way to try to conquer Europe through creeping rules and regulation and financial controls imposed by Brussels and Germany.”
What Hitler couldn’t keep together, liberalism has.