I suspect language will be a key barrier in changing Europe from a Union to a single country.
Language us a powerful factor in population dynamics (see Canada with English and French) and in Europe you'd be dealing with major language roots.
English obviously, but also French, German, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Polish and so on. I don't see much cohesion with so many languages, and no current country to give up language primacy.
Using language to create an us-versus-them situation is easy, and I don't see this happy union-of-equals easily subscribing to a federated state concept.
It's not just language. There's also cultural differences, religious differebces, inter-cultural conflict, historical controversies and so on.
There is a small spark of European identify slowly forming amongst younger generations, but it will take decades before anything like a federal union would even be feasable.
Refer to Indian states. The languages across most states are actually mutually un-intelligible and cultures probably much more dramatically different than anything in Europe. In most of Europe, the majority culture have common elements of either Catholic or Protestant or Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
I really don't want Europe to look like India in any way, administratively, politically and logistically speaking. Not to mention the countless tensions you can feel accross the country when you travel there. It seems like a ticking social bomb when I go there, and we don't have the class system to shut up lower classes and women that keeps the uniquality stable.
The partition of colonial India was anything but a peaceful road to co-existence. The consequences included over a million dead, and tens of millions of people displaced. Last time I checked, India and Pakistan shelling each others' positions is still so commonplace that it's become a meme.
Language us a powerful factor in population dynamics (see Canada with English and French) and in Europe you'd be dealing with major language roots.
English obviously, but also French, German, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Polish and so on. I don't see much cohesion with so many languages, and no current country to give up language primacy.
Using language to create an us-versus-them situation is easy, and I don't see this happy union-of-equals easily subscribing to a federated state concept.