Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, the EU was not made to improve the economies of its members. Its main goal is to intertwine them enough to make another big war way too painful.
No surprise there. "When goods don't cross borders, armies will."
Plenty of other examples one could give, but the chart on this article (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/why-the-world-looks-a...) may do. Free trade hit a peak in 1913, the highest it had perhaps ever been. The period that followed was not exactly peaceful.