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[...]There is no doubt that there are deep divisions within the EU. Poland is being sued by the European Commission for straying from democratic principles. The Italians and the French are feuding over budgets and borders. The Hungarians and Germans are at loggerheads over refugees. Greece was almost thrown out of the euro.
But the internal divisions pulling the EU27 apart are less powerful than the external pressures pushing them together. This simple point is sometimes missed, even in Brussels, because the EU likes to call itself a union of “values”.
However, the idea that EU leaders are united by shared values is increasingly hard to maintain. Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, and Matteo Salvini, the deputy prime minister of Italy, have a lot more in common with Donald Trump in the US (or even Vladimir Putin in Russia) than with Emmanuel Macron or Angela Merkel, the French and German leaders. The Italian, Hungarian and Polish governments are also fond of the anti-Brussels rhetoric favoured by Britain’s Eurosceptics. But that does not mean they will diverge from the Brussels line in the Brexit negotiations.
They understand that their economic and strategic interests are much better served by sticking with the EU27. In that sense, the EU looks increasingly like an alliance built on shared interests than a union of values. Talk of alliances tends to cause shudders in Brussels because it is redolent of warfare in Europe. But in the 21st century, European countries have a clear interest in allying with each other, rather than against each other, as in the past. [...]
[...]the EU will survive the occasional division over policy towards China or the US. The fact is that the package of benefits that the EU provides can never be replicated by the US or China.
The European single market offers proximity, size, legal certainty, freedom of movement of people and a vote on new laws and regulations. That is why countries such as Poland and Hungary — which love to complain about Brussels — are highly unlikely to risk leaving the EU.
There are some in Warsaw who predict that Poland will, in fact, walk out of the EU the moment that generous EU payments to Poland cease. But the reality is that even net contributors to the EU budget lose a lot if they leave. Just ask Brexit Britain.
Full article on Financial Times (subscription required)