@BMbler
...the hair-splitting IS important, as EEC declares the rules of the artificial european tradezone, while EU dictate everyting else (including politics, eg. "you have to vote a 2nd time" - a rather strange definition of democracy in my opinion, but ok, and currency (a freetrade-zone NEVER has to do with currency)... you see, you keep defending points that belong in EEC; but the EEC existed without the Union... (the EEC has been founded way earlier than the EU) AND, the EEC has been a zentralized replacement for an already working EFTA... The only reason why EEC has become victorious has been the fact, that Spain, France and Germany where in it, and that they a) quit ther EFTA-membership and b) forced all other of "EU15" (former EG) to also leave EFTA...
Tough times - yeah. THEY are inavoidable. Even WITHIN the EU, there are tough times coming; the Euro is falling again, and it has been falling before. In France there are severe civil uprisings against the Brussels austerity-politics, spain and portugal are feeling pressure from germany, and NATO is doing extensive "trainings" near the russion border.
TTIP is being pushed, so the whole EU-economy is faced with being flood with cheep products that could never have been released to customers in europe...
The question is: who will come out of those tough times better? The EU-states, or the independent ones?
Check out on how Norway mastered the "Euro-Crisis", how Switzerland, how the "semi-independant" GB, and what the Euro-States itself went through...
And, something has not been taken into consideration:
the world has changed.
China has become the most important market for quiet all states.
There is something called "BRICS", also a free-trade-zone with much more reasonable terms&agreements.
Euro is crashing (as the Maastricht-Criterias have been untightened)
EU is going to war (eg. Ukraine, Nato-maneuvers, expansion on any price)
EU has severe problems in their memberstates (Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, upcoming France)
As I do understand the problems of economy based and relating to EU-only, I don't understand why nobody is ready to objectivly analyse the current situation of the EU.
Everybody keeps claiming "they brought us peace" as EU means EC for them; but wrong, EU brought us Yugoslavia and Ukraine, and has been founded in 1991 (or was it 92??) WITHOUT asking the people of the member-states (thats a way to get a democratic legitimation, isn't it?) ... but even if you grant those points; what is the future of the EU?
I think especially acc. TTIP, everybody should ask him/herself "ok, what will be the future of EU, and which way will be the easier one?" (as tough times are not avoidable anyway)