This is yet another example of the 'enlightenment project' failing and hopefully heralds the beginning of quick return of a historical normalcy [that being one of liberal nation states]. The imperious Universalist political and economic philosophies that took social root in the twentieth century are coming to an end. The EU bloc isn't an effective geo-political counterweight. Nor do I see who or what it is counteracting? What legitimacy does the EU project have in the annals of human history? The EU is two faced at best and a vile manipulative political experiment at worst. The east has had its dose of 'shock therapy' following the collapse of the USSR. In these countries they have adopted the very best of authoritarian sub standard neo-liberalism. Their banks were bought out by western banks, their industries and economies developed through the cheap labour they afforded the western manufacturers. This has been economic imperialism at its best. The western powers facilitated the development of the eastern states without due consideration given to the legacy of soviet societal inheritance and the lack of any functioning and culturally relevant legal framework. It is funny to now see the EU (namely the western bloc) scrambling to protect itself when it has abused so pervasively. The EU and the powers that be within that framework can choke on their poisonous occidental utopian dream gone sour. The EU was never going to work, it never will work, but maybe the EU will be the first domino to fall…

Long before the GFC, the European Union was in crisis.

On the rare occasions that some constitutional loophole allowed a people's referendum on EU policy, the vote was always NO - Ireland 2008, France and Holland 2005.

Despite these 'minor' setbacks, the EU leadership was well on track to creating its own military force and had for years been exploiting NATO as its foreign policy weapon, until the GFC finally stopped it in its tracks.

Perhaps at last the EU leadership are being forced to accept that the people of Europe are not interested in becoming pawns in a Third-Way Power Bloc. It's time the EU got back to being what it was set up to do - i.e. creating a trade-friendly organisation of European states.