Sixty-five years ago, what has become the European Union was an embryo conceived in fear. It has been stealthily advanced from an economic to a political project, and it remains enveloped in a watery utopianism even as it becomes more dystopian. The EU's economic stagnation — in some of the 28 member nations, youth unemployment approaches 50 percent — is exacerbated by its regulatory itch and the self-inflicted wound of the euro, a common currency for radically dissimilar nations. The EU is floundering amid mass migration, the greatest threat to Europe's domestic tranquility since 1945.
The EU's British enthusiasts, who actually are notably unenthusiastic, hope fear will move voters to affirm Britain's membership in this increasingly ramshackle and acrimonious association. A June 23 referendum will decide whether "Brexit" — Britain's exit — occurs. Americans should pay close attention because this debate concerns matters germane to their present and future.
The EU is the linear descendant of institution-building begun by people for whom European history seemed to be less Chartres and Shakespeare than the Somme and the Holocaust. After two world wars, or a 31-year war (1914-1945), European statesmen were terrified of Europeans. Under the leadership of two Frenchmen, Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet, they created, in 1951, the European Coal and Steel Community to put essential elements of industrial war under multinational control.