“Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas” is a dictum that would apply well to the case. Over the last few years national political or technocratic players have developed a resistance to the continuous strengthening of the European policy role and increasingly defended their national prerogatives, opposing further devolution of power to the European level.
The argument – which is related to the second reason why Europe is not more present on the world scene – is that such a devolution is not supported by the people of Europe, often forgetting that no occasion is lost by national policy makers to blame Europe, or the euro, for any problem, including those that arise from domestic policy failures.