The EU was forced upon many people who did not want it.
In reality, it is just another FAILED SOCIALIST SYSTEM.
This should surprise nobody.
This process took one half of a century to complete. Those that supposedly did not want it, had ample chance to refuse. I don't recall much opposition, except from Brittan for a few decades. But they too are "coming to their senses."
In reality, it is just another FAILED SOCIALIST SYSTEM.
I seem unable to find support for your statement. We are united capitalist states; they are somewhat less united, socialist states. Seems that it is not being a union but the nature of the individual states that matters. A socialist system in Germany or Portugal is a failure by our standards even if they do not enter a union.
And even here one has to be cautious. Portugal has been a paternalistic state since times immemorial; it even exported that mentality to places such as Brasil, where it is not uncommon to retire at 48 agter 30 years of service. Well, it still exists; the is no famine in Portugal; it's not Angola. Germany has also been quite paternalistic, at least since unification. It started and lost two enormously wars, but it continues to be paternalistic and socialist, and it still exist in that form. Never mind, of course, that it is we who have been protecting Europeans from the Svoet Union and each other; never mind that we not only shed the blood of our soldiers but considerable financial resources as well. Never mind that they freely use our research and development, where we've been spending for decades 50% more than Europeans: vast majority of drugs developed since 1970s, for instance, have been created in the U.S. Yes, they play us for suckers (and we behave as such --- what the h-ll does our military does in Europe a full generation after the fall of the Soviet Union?)
In other words, European safety and prosperity are not commensurate with their socialist system; much of that was attained on our capitalist backs.
But a failure? Hardly.