Earlier quoted context omitted.
First Google result: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/14/the-european-u... >The people pushing for more integration are politicians and bureaucrats, not normal people. That's simply not true. There are multiple civil society organizations pushing for a closer union. People are voting for parties that are explicitly pro-European.
I don't know who's right but France has some 65M people whereas e.g. Lithuania has 3M people. And France provides 15% of the EU budget whereas (say) Lithuania provides 0.3%. I'm not sure listing all countries on a bar chart as if their opinions have equal impact on the fate of the EU is an accurate way to illustrate the situation? Would the EU do just fine after losing the UK and a country like France? Would Germans…
Germans took up way more monetary responsibility during Corona. E.g. they took various patients from Netherlands and paid for the care themself. Same with the financial crisis that was a result of Corona, Germany was happy to help out other countries.
Now if you look at what Netherlands gains out of the EU (so what the EU is worth to NL) it is about 7 to 8 times the net payment. Limiting the net amount paid is good, but the focus on net payment without looking at what you get is quite short sighted.
See e.g. UK where just paying the custom agents will cost an equivalent as the EU payments.