They wanted to create a Euro-version of the United States, but had no cohesive social ‘glue’ to hold it together.................
Somewhat - the French wanted a unitary state - like they have a unitary state (everything in France is run through Paris), but Germany and Belgium don’t want that — both are very Federal states with individual states haign a lot more power than US states.
The EU can work as a confederation - i.e. a larger version of the Swiss federation