"Ever closer union" is on the way out

I did not think I would see a French politician coming out against the concept of a United States Of Europe, but the Indy reported yesterday that the Brexit campaign has caused a rethink.

Both Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch politician who is head of the Eurogroup of Eurozone finance ministers, and Hubert Vedrine, a former French foreign minister, have suggested the EU response should be more realistic and more practical. Mr Dijsselbloem said: “The EU has moved ahead in leaps, but we haven’t always completed everything. That is our main task: to finish what we have started and show results to our citizens.” Mr Vedrine suggested the EU should abandon its federalist commitment to an “ever closer union” and move towards more limited, practical joint policies on trade, free movement, open borders and the environment.

The rising of popular anti-EU feeling in even the core EU states must also have got through.
The Netherlands was always the most democratic nation of the founding members of the EEC/EC/EU, but for a politician in the nation which still reveres Napoleon to have second thoughts is quite something.