What's the Point of the EU? (Nikolay Pakhomov, The National Interest)

For years we have heard almost daily about serious problems facing the European Union. On the strategic level, there are two ways to deal with those problems. One option is to play Whac-a-Mole, dealing with them one at a time and hoping that, in the meantime, a bigger problem does not arrive. This is basically what European leaders have been doing, at least since the debacle over ratification of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. Or else, leaders can understand the reason (or reasons) behind the majority, if not all, of these problems. The latter approach is not difficult, but it demands a level of political honesty that can be hardly seen in today’s Europe.

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/whats-the-point-the-eu-15812