Stephen Den Beste provides his view on the root causes between European and American differences -- particularly, what is the EU trying to accomplish relative to the US?

The answer is that the purpose of the European Union is to roll back the post-war experiment in western Europe with capitalist representative democracy, and to restore Europe to its rightful place at the center of the world's stage by displacing the US as the predominant power in the world.

The driving motivation behind it is a religious belief, along with a nostalgia for past greatness, profound distrust of the masses, and resentment of American power and influence, as well as outright fear of what America might decide to do with its unprecedented position in the world.

Bravo.   Right on and very well stated.   SDB argues the sheltered life Europeans led bred a form of Teenage resentment.  Some of the literature trying to understand the "psychology" of delinquent inner city youth talks about the "100% cast off".   Psychological self-preservation -- it's often theorized -- drives these kids to avoid acknowledgement of the Goodness of even one bit of "white" behavior.   To do so would be to immediately indict your self.   The EUropeans do it here:

A new fiction arose; a new explanation which Europeans told one another as a way of explaining away their weakness and dependency. Europe's peace and prosperity had not come about because of American military occupation; it had happened because Europe had transcended old fashioned ideas about security through strength. Europeans started to get along because they had moved to a new political and intellectual plateau, where all problems could be solved through negotiations and war was no longer needed. The Americans had nothing to do with it, and indeed because they remained wedded to the old-fashioned ideas of "peace through strength" it was actually Europe which was superior in all the ways that really mattered.

A very tell-tale passage on the role of Elites in European nations vs. the US:

In Europe, the masses are held in contempt by the educated classes. Recently I posted a translation of an opinion piece from Le Monde, which included the following highly revealing passage:

The truth, the simple and foolish truth, is that we understand nothing about your war. The French masses understand nothing, which is normal. But, above, government ministers, diplomats, editorial writers, even our wise guys, they're just as astonished - and this is new.

The French masses understand nothing, which is normal. The masses are foolish, stupid, ignorant, lazy, and easily swayed by demagogues. Only an idiot would actually let them drive the bus, because they'd drive it off the edge of a cliff. Nations must be ruled by the elite, because they know what must be done and why. Any system which forces the elite to pander to the masses will destroy itself because the masses are slime.

But man, is SDB on the right track.   He echoes many of the sentiments I made here but in a much more pointed, forceful way (I was trying to stay diplomatic and present a point of view that some (?) Europeans could agree with.)

The EU, thus is a manifestation of these beliefs:

The political system of the EU will be designed to insulate the ruling elite as much as possible from accountability to the masses while maintaining the fiction of democracy. Elections will still be held, just as elections were held in the USSR, but their results will not matter much. The top elective offices of the EU will not be filled by direct vote of the citizens of Europe; rather, they will be selected by bodies indirectly appointed by the ruling elite of each individual state in the Union. This will give the ruling elite sufficient power to force the changes which are needed onto the continent, primarily through the power of an unelected bureaucracy and leaders appointed by other members of the elite. The political culture of that bureaucracy will be self-sustaining and it will be seeded initially with "the right kind of people" so that it will continue to work, in the long run, to do the right kinds of things for noble and idealistic reasons.