What is the future of the European Union?

The EU will be replaced by a similar collaborative organisation

Question: What is the future of the European Union?
Position‹2 of 2: The European Union will not exist in the future
Argument‹2 of 2: The EU will be replaced by a similar collaborative organisation

The problem lies with the institutions, rather than the EU itself.

The argument

The prediction has two parts, and the second is what distinguishes it from a simple forecast of collapse. The first part is that the European Union will not last, as EU Member States are increasingly at odds with the European Union's institutions. The argument reads that friction as structural rather than passing, and the raft of issues the EU faces supports the reading: the Eurozone crisis set creditor and debtor states against one another over the terms of a shared currency; the migrant crisis divided members over the distribution of an obligation none of them had chosen; and Britain's exit established that leaving is possible in practice and not merely in the treaties. Each of these set national governments against Brussels rather than only against each other, and on this account the accumulation will eventually lead to the institution's collapse. The second part is that the collapse will not end European cooperation, because the conditions that produced it will still be in place. It will remain necessary for European countries to collaborate and for their leaders to meet regularly: they will still share a continent, a set of borders, trading relationships and security concerns, none of which is contingent on the Union's survival. Those needs are what the Union was built to handle, and they predate it. So the demand for a forum outlives the body that currently supplies one. What follows the collapse is therefore not a return to purely bilateral dealing but a replacement — a similar collaborative organisation assembled to do the same work, even if it is not as powerful as the Union was and holds less authority over its members. The European Union will not exist in the future, but something recognisably in its place will.

Premises

[P1]EU Member States are increasingly at odds with EU institutions, and crises such as the Eurozone, migration, and Brexit will eventually cause the EU to collapse. [P2] European countries will still need to collaborate and have their leaders meet regularly after such a collapse. [C] Therefore, the EU will cease to exist and be replaced by a similar, if less powerful, collaborative organisation.

Counter-arguments

Increasingly stuck between two global super-powers in the USA and China, European countries will continue to support the existence of the European Union as a counter-balance. Recognising that as individual states they cannot compete alone, as well as the economic and political cost they would incur if the European Union collapsed, Member States will elect to pool sovereignty where necessary.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] The EU will be able to weather these challenges.