Thus the Financial Times today. “Integration is a noble attempt to overcome the EU’s problems,” elaborates the newspaper. How true, but how late, too. Had Berlin led Europe to closer union in the early Nineties, the endeavor would most likely have met with quite some success, and especially if Paris were also in line. Integration was in the air back then. Most Europeans were wholeheartedly behind it. But the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 was a sour disappointment for all those who wanted a closer union. And so was the Lisbon Treaty in 2007, which followed the botched-up attempt at the European Union’s constitution that was brought to its end by the French and Dutch in 2005. Were a terse but tough constitution offered in Maastricht, it would have had a real chance. The game is over by now, though. All suggestions of a closer union now face serious attempts to break it up. It is only a question of time before the first country leaves the vaunted Union. Will it be Britain? Or France and the Netherlands? Or perhaps even Germany? The only real chance for integration is outside threat. But the threat would have to be palpable enough for the Europeans to realize that there is no kidding around. Alas, Putin is too wise to provide such a welcome chance! Noble or otherwise, belated calls for a closer union are bound to end up on the garbage dump of history.