The European Union is in serious trouble. A series of recent challenges have shown the flaws in the design of the union.
Like the structural flaws that caused the fall of Edgar Allan Poe's "House of Usher," the structural flaws of the EU could bring a similar fate. In Poe's story, it was a minor zigzag crack in an aging wall that eventually widens into the full and final collapse of the house of Usher.
Some fissures in the EU are already more visible. Quite a few of these flaws are the product of an elite dream of an ever closer union racing ahead of political and economic realities.