The Fundamental Flaw in European Unity

The flaws of the European Union are many: Its overregulation of AI, growth-killing climate goals, and foreign-policy virtue signaling are but a few of its vices. Much less discussed, however, is the fundamental flaw in the idea that sits at the heart of the EU’s political union: the notion that European unity is, in and of itself, desirable. Europe’s history suggests otherwise.

When picturing a disunited Europe, most observers picture the horrible scenes of the First and Second World Wars, waged between competing European powers vying for dominance of the continent. This is also the picture of “disunity” that the EU likes to sell: We must stay united, or else we will soon be back in the trenches killing one another. Pro-EU campaigners during Britain’s 2016 Brexit referendum even hinted at the prospect of a World War III in their attempts to convince Brits to remain.