Want to state up-front, I am a dual citizen: an EU member and the US, and I live in the US. So I hope this gives my view some credibility as being grounded in the dual perspective.

The sentiment we're seeing in this story/comments and thematically is EU's desire to distance from the US - sure in infrastructure - but more so in identity. Which on the high-level I think is a great goal (ie, Europe should have European identity) but is incredibly risky and I am not sure is well thought out, though I could be wrong.

We can say that since 1950s the US and Europe had a familial relationship with the US being a bit of the parent despite being younger. That manifested in everything from protection (US bases in Europe, NATO), money flow, and culture flow. Since the 1950s, America did not become more European but Europe became more American.

Today we're in the adolescent stage of this familial relationship - Europe wants to move out of the house and perhaps even pay for its own cell-phone plan and that could be wonderful because if that leads to a legitimately stronger and more robust Europe, that's great.

But there's risk. Sometimes when the adolescent moves out of the house, they blossom into the fully manifested version of themselves. Other times they fall in with a bad crowd or fail to deal with their internal problems - and whither. It's easy to tell daddy-US to fuck off, it's much harder to not slide into the clutches of Russia and China in the next decade or two, or to deal with the internal demographic crisis.

What worries me for Europe is that it is trying to "distance" more than its trying to "grow." I don't hear people talk about a Europe that's strong, that leads, that innovates - in other words, the motivation is still about the US (just in a negative sense) not about Europe itself and that's not a good sign.

I still don't sense a true vibe of resurgence coming out of my native continent. Difficult problems you've always had tend to come to a head once you actually move out of your parents house. And while it's great (or at least cute) that you can switch to a European e-mail provider that's very far from what it actually takes to survive and thrive as a country in the long run. Hope it pans out.