I think EU is pretty logical extension if you have both EEA (free trade) and Schengen (free movement of people). If USA was just a collection of independent states with free trade agreement and free movement of people, we would live in a very different world.

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)

> What the EU is trying to do has been done in the past and it has failed.

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.

> It is however necessary for a internal economic market that guarantees the free flow of capital and labor

That is, by definition, the purpose of the European Economic Area. Not the EU.

Which (apart from agriculture and fishery) regularly incorporates the EU acquis as an integral part of how it's set up. I would more accurately describe the purpose of the EEA as "provide a way of EU membership without calling it such".

Austria Hungary has failed. The Soviet Union has failed even though everybody in it was speaking Russian, which is not the case with the EU. The EU will fail if it continues like this, with massive centralization of power. The difference is that unlike Austria Hungary and the USSR, it does not have a standing army to back its power and member states will leave when economic crisis hits and it's no longer in their best interests to stay.

> The EU will fail if it continues like this, with massive centralization of power.

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?

The EU, incidentally, is the scale of a large modern day nation-state. It's obviously a bigger scale then it's own constituent nation-states, but then so are China, India, Ruusia, and the USA.

The evidence is to be found in the study of monetary policy. Depending on your political inclination, I suggest a web search for late Thatcher speeches, or Varoufakis books. Ideally, both.

Thatcher only convinces me Manchester would have been better off as a city-state, setting it's own monetary policy instead of Thatcherism.

Germany was build out of different german speaking principalities. Germany was problematic in the 20th century but the problems were against its neighbours, not within.

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.

They were already speaking German and Otto von Bismarck and did lend them a bit of a helping hand, pissing off the French in the process, which pretty much led to both world wars.

Could you please refresh my memory: Which of the Soviet Union states was allowed to hold a referendum on whether it should leave?

All of them, as specified in article 26 in the Treaty on the Creation of the Sovient Union.

Czechoslovakia wasn't part of the USSR.