Re: You missed out Napoléon.
I completely agree that the EU isn't trying to create a monolithic Europe.
However, the EU also has a number of pressing issues that it hasn't really attempted to address (the economics around the Euro being a prime example) that really need to be addressed by a more uniform approach that addresses some of the underlying social and business practices. They have survived 30 years avoiding the question and 2008 almost sank them - if there was another economic storm around the corner, I don't think they can continue without major changes of a significant number of European financial organisations.
Having said that, Boris's comments around Hitler where always going to be an own goal:
a) the surrounding statement was too long for newspaper headlines/television sound bites
b) he mentioned Hitler...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
