This is all empty political rhetoric.

Billions of people exist in the EU. In real terms it has not gone anywhere.

Obsession with preserving political dogma, rhetorical forms, atheist appearing syntax and semantics (language that does invoke specific concepts of theology); political and economic abstraction that do not represent reality is not much different from religion.

By your measure every nation effectively died out centuries ago as some originating principles died with their originators of those principles. Yet here we are still discussing France and Russia and the US as real things. They only ever existed as ethno objects to begin with; things that only exist if we talk about them as existing.

So what if some rhetorical specifics that used to define the economic and political foundations of the EU mutate. That's immutable reality for you. It's bound to happen due to generational churn.

People who live there can still use the term EU to define whatever political structure and economic model they land on next.