I do think there is a rather big stretch between the "EU" as overlording entity, and nations within Europe working together for the better of each. I do think that how the EU started was pretty much the latter, but what it has become, when looking at "Brussels" an separate entity that is undemocratic (if not indeed anti-democratic, as parties being critical about how the EU is run are marginalised or, if not possible, actually demonised). Laws enforced in, for ex., The Netherlands, are for 90+% voted for by governments not chosen by the Dutch people. And I really do not like Germany, France or Italy having a bigger say in what happens here than the Dutch populace itself. Where the countries of Europe have proved to be able to work together in the past, the attachment of countries nowhere near ready for attachment has resulted in a quagmire of political wrangling and inadequacy; see how the EU works the corona-crisis.
The EU was a good idea when it was about cooperation and coordination. It worked as long as is consisted of countries pretty much aligned in things like politics and economics. But the idealism of 'One Europe' has prevailed over the reality of Europe being several 'blocks' that cannot be put together in one working machine. What is has become is a playground for the power-hungry; the more countries the top in Brussels has to lord over, the bigger the power that top has. As it is run now, the EU will be the undoing of Europe; if it will be run as it is run now, "EU" will become the biggest enemy Europe has faced. You can bring people together, but you cannot force them together, for when the 'mass' becomes critical, it will explode. The last effort to bring Europe under one government was started in 1938. The EU after WW2 was set up to prevent such happening again. But cooperation is being turned in coercion (again), because the EU is increasingly run by people who do not seek the betterment of all European nations and people, but the increase of power for themselves. Power will attract those who desire power. Once power is in the hands of those, they will make sure that power stays in their hands. At whatever means. Those means starting with the gradual degrading and ultimate abolishment of democracy, and the obscuring of the machinations of those in power by way of curtailing free investigation (by way of, for ex., free press), and installing a one-party political system in which any and all parties critical about the political system are marginalised and ultimately abolished. Tell me, how much of a true opposition is there in the EU Parliament (like any true democratic country invariably has), to keep a critical tag on the workings of the parliament?
If Europe is to be(come) a success in the long run, the people of it need to see there is a functioning (hence transparent) system to put people in places of power, and to take them from these places if they abuse power. That system is failing in Europa. If Europe is to have a successful future, it will need to become transparent again, it will need to get the trust of the people of it back again. In short, it will need to give the power to steer it back to the people of Europe again. Next month, there will be the day when we will remember what it cost 75 years ago when such did not happen.