The European Union shows all the signs of worsening economic, social and political decline, with symptoms ranging from tepid economic growth and chronically high unemployment to social unrest and rising political extremism.   

The idealistic roots and worthy intentions of early European integration in the wake of two world wars have long given way to a bureaucratic cadre steeped in etatist doctrines.  

At its heart, the EU is an elite-driven project that rejects the primacy of market economics over social welfare models, compounded by a disdain for democracy.  

Its relentless quest for top-down uniformity ignores what was once Europe’s guiding principle of governance, subsidiarity, which holds that decisions...