Yes, Im glad we get to address this more sociological layer of the situation. European sociology is opaque to the rest of the world, which tends to generalize the nations under one umbrella, not seeing how France and Germany can not be calculated or predicted by the same logic.
It is precisely because the continent has been forged into a superficial unity, that there are no positive values or inclinations or character traits to exult as “our own” - in my childhood we all instinctively sensed the absolute difference of us (Dutch) from the Germans, and the even yet greater difference between us and the French or Italians. Italians were as different from us as Chinese, and this made for a lot of value. To travel to such a country was always a pure enriching experience, every day a miracle of sorts. Today, to travel from Amsterdam to Rome is a real mundane affair, it is hard to get excited about any culture in Europe now, as all is covered up and made equal in temperament by this thin film of EU-ness thats come to cover all of it. It is suffocating, and that is also part of what causes the anesthesia - a simple lack of “cultural air”, I don’t know how else to call it - the equation of Such culture to German culture through the medium of the continent has effectively stifled all Dutch cultural expressions, and thus all our creative spirit is in paralysis. Except those solitary new philosophers, which number, of course, at best one in a million. But at least we are here.
Here is a thing that value ontology, i.e. self valuing logic, or simply the exploded WtP logic, which is what my theory is at basis (what else could interest a scientific mind) makes very clear: remove particular values and destroy particular being. As soon as the Dutch had to value Brussels instead of The Hague as government city, Holland slipped into a coma. The same but worse for France. When it had to give up Paris for Brussels as the signifier of power, obviously this killed most of French structural integrity.
Our structural integrity is that of a valuator, therein is out consistency. EU simply has insufficient value, in human terms, to sustain its people as positive entities. In the North, people have been reduced from entities to particles of the wannabe-entity of a European cultural economy. All culture has leaked out, the education system has dropped its positive, factual and historic content for mannerisms aimed to causes as little effect as possible - Europeans are quite literally being trained to go through life as corpses.
Ill post this now, it addresses some aspects of your writing. There is much more, but here is a start. It really does appear like Europe can simply only be understood through the lens of Nietzsche. And perhaps, Nietzsche can only the understood through the lens of Europe.