I get your argument. But the same one can be made about anything. French government subsidizing French cinema? Not fair, because it puts German cinema at a disadvantage. Better housing policies in Poland? Shouldn't be allowed, because lower rents mean lower salaries, which means cheaper industrial goods, which, again, puts Germany at a disadvantage. And so on. But in a federal state, the members should compete on at least something. If they don't, if they are forced to behave exactly the same in all regards, what's the point of having a federal state in the first place? A centralized one would do.
broader class of EU-like things might come to be
African Union is modeled on EU, but the centrifugal forces are stronger there so it's not clear whether it will ever amount to anything.
Also relevant to the discussion: Catalan independence, Flemish independence (Belgium), Scottish independence.
We should distinguish between appetite for decentralization and nationalism. E.g. Farage was for Brexit, but against Scottish independence.
By the way, your comment shows one thing that's may not be obvious from the outside (and maybe even from the inside): There's a lot of people who are in favour of the European project even if they never say so or act on it in any way. And not because it is cool and sexy, it most definitely isn't, but partly because of the historic experience (every family has stories like yours) and partly because they see EU as a check on their national government, preventing it from going fully bonkers. That being said, this political capital is completely untapped.
What does democracy even mean when your vote can't even in principle influence the laws of where you live? Why should any populace grant its authority to enact certain laws to a larger entity that doesn't share its values?
Ideally, every competence would be passed as far down as possible, but not further. That being said, there are violations in both directions. One way, agricultural policy (CAP) does not make sense on EU level and should be dealt on a more local level. The other way, army should be dealt with on the EU level -- one big army provides better deterrence than 27 small ones. Also, there are violations at national level. E.g. France would really benefit from being less centralized. But in each case, it's easy to see why there's no political will to change the status quo. It's coordination failures all the way down.
1EU started to appear as that complicated bureaucratic elitist thing than nobody really understands under IQ 120
True that, with all the renaming, acronyms, the clashing and non-descriptive names. That kind of thing tends to happen in large corporations as well, likely the same dynamics.
Anyway, the role of the press should be to call bullshit and present a simple narrative, so that anyone, no matter the IQ, can at least understand what's going on. That's what I've tried to do with the Balkan house parable. Not sure how catchy it is, but I think it succeeds in balancing simplicity with fitting the reality. Unfortunately, I don't see the mainstream press doing the same.
Wow. That asks for a bunch of judgement calls! So here's what I think, but YMMV:
Q: How powerful is the EU, relative to other major countries?
A: Size wise (various metrics) it's up there with US and China.
Q: What is its role in international politics?
A: Not much. Foreign policy is decided unamimously meaning that only the lowest common denominator is viable.
Q: What is its long-term trajectory, based on key indicators like economic growth or population growth?
A: Economic growth is middling. Partially because advanced countries grow less, partially, there was an actual slowdown after 2008. Population growth is weak, but not as bad as in East Asia. But of course, there's a large increase becuase of accession of new countries.
Q: As a resident of the EU, is the existence of the EU a net positive or net negative for me?
A: Positive. There are no longer wars in Europe. It used to be the case there was a war between France and Germany every 40-50 years. (And it's not like it can't happen any more, see Yugoslavia, Ukraine.)
Q: Did the existence of the EU help or hurt in crisis situations like the financial crisis of 2008.
A: I am not an economist, but if you look at, say, Greek crisis, the difference seems to be that Greece was not allowed to default which it would have probably done if it was not in Eurozone. Btw, nice blog on EU economics: https://www.siliconcontinent.com/
Q: or the Covid pandemic of 2020?
A: Just a feeling, no data, but observing the shitshow, EU seems to have done somewhat better on average than individual nation states.
1There are languages out there in which the epistemic status is a mandatory part of a sentence ("I've seen", "so I have been told", "I think", etc.)
Yeah, high potential impact but it's hard to cause any change. The best course of action, IMO, is to build personal networks and shared understanding so as to be prepared and coordinated when a crisis hits.
Jut stumbled upon a writeup about the EU's Common Agricultural Policy which gives more details about the current state of affairs: https://elaine.mayoris.com/go/x5u4ooluse0aaauiok2lg063hjgfz7kqjvjwcsgwsoi2/2866