Further, you seem to assume that without the EU, trade between countries would somehow radically decrease, i don't see that happening. The European Economic Area (EEA) and the Schengen treaty exist independently from the EU. Norway and Switzerland are not members of the EU, yet they trade perfectly fine with others. The EU is not necessary for free trade.
PS: Feel free to downvote, but at least make an argument.
Benefits is that there are a lot to negotiate internally besides free trade agreements and it gives negotiation power in the global arena, now that there are at least 3 superpowers (USA, China, Russia to the lesser extent).
(P.S. Didn't downvote)
First, If we would never try what in the past has failed then we would be really in a very stagnant state. Second, the EU has not failed, the EU is still the main reason for the prosperity most of its members have gained and still continue to gain after WWII. That it has had some backlashes recently does not mean at all that it has failed.
> The EU is not necessary for free trade.
It is not. It is however necessary for a internal economic market that guarantees the free flow of capital and labor, which is much wider/different in scope than free trade. Free trade can be arranged with a few trade treaties in neo liberal style.
That is, by definition, the purpose of the European Economic Area. Not the EU.
I keep hearing this argument, but I've never heard any supporting arguments. What evidence is there that "sovereignty" is optimal at the administrative scale of modern-day nation-states and not EU-sized scales, or going the other direction, at provincial, city or district levels?
And then there are those 13 ex-colonies, now 50, which dared to want an ever closer union. They had a civil war, yes, but since then secession seems to out of the picture.
What it can't be is something in the middle, like it's now.
The EU feels out of touch, unresponsive, "undemocratic". Whether it is or not isn't the issue; it feels that way to too many people. Many people therefore feel very little emotional affinity with the EU. If the EU is going to survive, that needs to change, because it opens the door to anti-EU populists in several countries. If enough win, the EU could become a skeleton of what it is now.
Sounds like you're advocating erasing the cultural and linguistic variety of the member states in favour of a common language and culture so that American companies can sell things more easily?
When I see people complain about the EU it's usually about "the EU taking their sovereignty and imposing stuff on them".
So if "things are going to change" that means the EU would have to become less like the U.S. (a federal entity), and more like an aggregate of wildly different cultures and regulations (so more like the pre-EU Europe).
Is that really a good thing? And do things "need to change" that way? Or is more education necessary about why the EU needs to become more homogeneous and less heterogeneous?
I can say one thing - if EU states remain wildly different from each other in culture, language, and regulations, the EU will continue to remain a much less appealing market than the US. And it's not so much that the laws are "stricter" (like say the privacy ones), as it is about the laws being different in each country, and making it hard for a company to be compliant with all of them. And I think that means fewer options and fewer quality products for Europeans in the end (you'll be stuck with your locally-made products).