The various crises in the last years have forced EU countries together, as they have to make joint choices on things that do matter to them: socio-economic models, immigration, defense. European countries discover how different they are, how difficult it is to bridge differences.
Old EU was largely happening behind people's back, governments deciding about seemingly arcane economic issues. And geopolitically it was embedded in an US-led order. Both conditions gone, EU becoming deeply political, with power clearly back in intra-EU relations.
No surprise that differences become more visible, and that disagreements on the rise between various EU countries.
Problem is that ideas haven't kept up with those developments. On the one hand there is old fashioned-nationalism, on the other hand equally old-fashioned federalism, both based on the model of the nation-state.
