LOL, you are basically saying that by entering into an agreement like the Schengen Agreement and becoming less like nations, the overall group becomes more nationalistic. That seems like absurd circular reasoning.

The constituent countries in the EU are still sovereign countries. Unlike US states, they are free to leave at any time.

By your definition of nationalism, Europe is simply replacing French/German/etc nationalism with EU nationalism.

The EU already has a parliament, "federal" laws, and a single currency. They're building an EU army and discussing federal taxes. At what point do you call them a nation?

You are engaging in absurd double-think. Loosening restrictions on movement is not tightening restrictions on movement no matter how many mental hoops you try to jump through.

This discussion is becoming too hostile for Hacker News. I'll make one more attempt to explain my point of view, then I'm out:

Loosening restrictions on select people is not loosening restrictions on everyone.

Vatican City, with their tightly controlled migration policy, is not the country with the most freedom of movement simply because they allow freedom of movement to carefully chosen people.

In the Vatican, for example, a given person either has a 100% chance of migration or a 0% chance. Israel has similar numbers. In the Schengen area, it's either a 100% chance or a very small chance.

Update:

Perhaps this will be clearer. Every free country grants total freedom of movement to some group of people. In Israel, this is Jewish people. In the United States, US citizens. In the Schengen area, citizens of the Schengen area.

What does that have to do with nationalism? Nationalism is a distinction between the treatment of in-group people and out-group people.

In the Schengen area, people from the Schengen area are the in-group.

This line of argument is absurd. You cannot become more restrictive by becoming less restrictive.

Nationalism isn't standalone, it's tied to a particular nation.

Changing loyalty to a larger nation isn't the same as becoming less nationalistic.

The Schengen Area is not in any sense a nation. Look at the definition of the word nation: "a large aggregate of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory". The Schengen Area checks off people and territory but nothing else.

It doesn't even have a shared government to try to make it fit if you are trying to use "nation" as a synonym for "country". Most of the countries are part of the EU, but Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland are part of the Schengen Area but not the EU.

> united by common descent, history, culture, or language

Are you saying Europeans don't have any descent, history, or culture in common?

Descent, mostly not. Culture, mostly not. History, yes, of constantly fighting each other for hundreds of years (which is the type of shared history that creates national separations, not the kind that unites nations).

There are some groups of countries that have some descent and culture in common like Portugal/Spain or Benelux or Scandinavia, but there is no pan-European culture. Portugal, Greece, Monaco, Latvia and Iceland have almost nothing in common.

Then why hasn't the Schengen area admitted north Africa or the middle east?

Spain is a lot closer to Morocco than to Norway, but Spain partnered with Norway rather than Morocco because they share the same descent (European) and culture (Christian).