so marmars, mormors and murmurs aside, most people on the street - i.e. not the political elite, and even the pro-EU ones, aren't so delusional to want much expansion, and most have their own tears to shed about something they thought EU was going to be, but didn't become. EU approval goes up when people are scared of Russia and Trump. It means that as an institution, it reigns through fear, like a proper dictatorship.

Things pro-EU people these past few years complain about not getting:

• Increased integration before expansion. There's still no constitution, there's still no way for a German to vote for an Italian.
• Actually open borders for them, and for the shit they order on aliexpress. Not for people that are not them of course, or someone else's vices. It is not a completely delusional thing though to observe that Schengen gets deviated from, and it is always clearly in favor of some narrative a ruling party forwards. I.e. German softies to look as if they're hard too, Italian hardliners to keep promises they can't keep within the framework of the treaties, during Covid... nearly every mf in power.
• The worst performer: information age dominance. This was promised for a decade and billions were spent on shoring up tech education. Turns out "thanks for the education imma migrate to silicon valley now" really fucked that abomination of a vision.

and so on, and so on. So there's a lot of skepticism. As long as you don't come to the party with your fur soviet hat or maga cap on, you'll often hear significantly more complaints than people that feel that "this is the way".

I’m sure the yoga marmar’s are cool in their own way. (Was my Scandi right?)