Slop.

Part of the rethoric of european unification is that European countries are too small in today's world to go it alone. They have to band together as a block, which is a logic that predates both the Ukraine War and that one time in 2008 when systemic US fraud destroyed Europe's economy. It originated in a time of optimism, before the US encircled a divided Europe via wars in the middle east and such while hollowing it out. Nowadays the rethoric is used as a coping mechanism for european liberals and atlanticists. It is a desperate move against the reactionary nativism that would see the EU dismantled rather than held accountable to a democratic system.

Looking at the history of european nation states and how every institution arose due to the threat real or imagined of neighborly armies and industry, I don't think that's an unworkable slogan.

They literally think China is secretly trying to take over Europe or some shit, when asked for proof someone in that thread started babbling about a report by a state department funded think tank that claimed (without evidence) that China has 350 social media profiles spreading "pro-China propaganda" which apparently is all that's required to take over a shithole like Europe lmao

The EU is already quite united in terms of markets, military and surveillance (under the American umbrella but still).

But many European nationalists* are not satisfied with the current arrangement because individual European governments have too much sovereignty and often resist the EU-technocratic agenda (usually for reactionary reasons).

Another thing is that combining Europe would allow for more free movement of labor through the union. This would have exactly the expected effects**. Hollowing out of the periphery. Falling wages in the core. More profits for industrial capital (idk the effects on finance capital, but I presume they would find a way to benefit if such a thing happened).

*these people function as nationalists because they think Europe forms a nation (or at least, has the potential to become one). They are not wrong even in the marxist sense since combined markets and centralised political control is what converted clans/fiefs/city states and so on into nation-states.

**at a greater intensity than what is already happening

we need to unite to fight russia just like America wants us to, in order to stick it to America because they're our enemy... but also our ally