The issue at the heart involves nations who are asserting the sanctity of national sovereignty versus those who want to dissolve borders and create some form of top-down EU Superstate, euphemistically called the “ever closer union.” The conflict will determine the future viability of the entire European Union project. Brexit was only the first crack in the EU edifice.

During a visit to Berlin March 3, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte bluntly came out against the recent trend led by Germany, France and other EU states to create a top-down central supranational state along the lines of a United States of Europe. He told press, “There has been this narrative that there is this inevitability of closer cooperation in a European federal state.”

He became blunt: “This horrible language about ‘ever closer Union’ I don’t like. In the past 20 or 30 years this has moved from ever closer union of the peoples of the EU working together on collective issues, where member states weren’t able to deal with it themselves, to become an inevitable goal in itself.”

Then Rutte declared the unspeakable “S” word: “We can never forget that these are sovereign nations. This is not a movement in itself, just when needed in special occasions. It has moved from a collective effort of nations to a goal in itself. It’s totally wrong!”