Well it seems to me the only thing Europe can brag about is that they have over 300 million people as members. That's all. Simply encompassing a group of formerly separate groups of people does not in any way increase economic productivity. To the contrary, it creates fiscal problems when separate governments have different social spending priorities. The only real effect I can think of is that the more influential countries like France will bully the smaller members into towing the line in foreign policy matters, using artificially created political and economic incentives. It will give a unified voice to dealing with the rest of the world. So in effect it will further skew the influence of the more powerful European nations. Why the smaller European countries would be a party to this I have no idea. They will simply be giving up their sovereignty and independence, something that neither Napoleon or Hitler could achieve for very long.