In people’s eyes the EU had become a Leviathan, a bureaucratic monster of Brussels, out of the reach for citizens. NGOs like JEF and UEF tried to call politicians to draw up a Constitutional agreement after France and the Netherlands had rejected the Constitutional Treaty in 2005. Before that a majority of Member States had already accepted to move towards the simplified new treaty basis for the EU. After 2007 the period of reflection was not turned into constructive negotiations by the German presidency as was hoped for by many.

Italian, French and German fiscal policy failures caused by aging populations and massive budget deficits strengthened the downhill. The second term government of the Polish brothers – the “Kaczyński Dynasty” and their lining up with Berlusconi and Putin finally divided and ended the project of European integration. No one expected the dissolution of political union in 2044. Hundreds of thousands EU-bureaucrats were unemployed in one night.

The infamous Swedish Prime Minister Anders Ekberg warmly thanked Swedes for “bringing the sovereignty back in their suitcases” as they travelled back from Brussels. The former Eurocrats were only promised not to be accused of treason if they agreed saying an oath that “they’d never again work for hostile alien institutions”.

Common political goals were impossible to reach with national vetoes blocking all necessary agreements.

Until this, the EU had somehow managed to limp along despite serious disagreements on the size of the EU-budget. Common political goals were impossible to reach with national vetoes blocking all necessary agreements. In 2014 the EU decided explicitly not to grant membership nor the privileged partnership to Turkey because of rising islamophobia in Europe. The Ottomans turned to China to find a rising ally. EU states were unable to present a common front in the UN, and the new tri-lateral world order established.

Why is Balkans still sufferring from the reminiscent of the 1990s and frozen conflicts? Because Member States couldn’t agree on giving assistance to put these countries on their feet.

Slovenia was luckier, as it replaced Swiss ski-resorts as the Permafrost melted and caused deaths of thousands of tourists and a collective trauma. Slovenia became Europe’s new Party Island and slalom destination under its beloved populist President, Borut Cink. The other Balkan countries hadn’t the luck to elect as cunning leaders. Today illegal pharmaceuticals production in the Balkan “Ruhrgebiet” is the only way for us to afford our medicine and for them to stay alive.

The EU was slowly doomed to become a chapter called “European dream era” in the world’s history books. It was a daring project trying to alternate Nation States and move towards regionalisation along globalisation. Europe had its chance to start flourishing again, but the tide was to turn to another direction. Thus, today we mourn the failure of the reform that started in Rome 1957, with which JEF and UEF tried to challenge the outdated Westphalian nation-state order.

This article was initially published in the “European Decline” version of the Daily European. See the entire newspaper in pdf format here.