This was so brain bogglingly amazing, even for Europe, that I just had to excerpt it,

"ROMANO Prodi, the Italian prime minister, has accused nations such as Britain and Poland of putting national interests ahead of European goals, and said Europe had lost the common spirit to move ahead.

...He lambasted Britain for its "obstinacy" in wanting a European anthem and flag excluded from the treaty and for "conducting a battle" against the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. "The doggedness of some governments to negate every emotional aspect of Europe hurt me," he said, citing Poland, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands."

You mean there are nations that actually put their national interests above those of Europe? How shocking it is that they wouldn't want to subsume ever aspect of their own sovereignty into an entity run almost top to bottom by souless, unelected, elitist nannycrats -- no, really, it is shocking that they're not all that far gone yet.

Maybe there's some small amount of hope for them yet -- nah, just kidding, in thirty years, unless there are some massive changes, a good portion of Western Europe will be in a deep and probably irreversible decline.