Irony Alert: EU Edition

The European Union has seemed like it is punishing Britain for voting to leave the EU as a warning to other member states not to even think about exiting the EU. But Italy is increasingly a member state that the EU probably doesn't want inside the EU. Those are conflicting problems before the EU has an army to enforce a Brussels Brezhnev Doctrine against leaving the EU and enforcing Brussels' orders.

Grant me that this is funny:

For those who believe in the European project, Brexit is a headache. Italy, on the other hand, is a bloody nightmare. Its new anti-elite populist coalition government of the alt-left Five Star Movement and the radical-right League is currently set on a collision course with the EU. This could easily start a chain reaction that destroys the single currency.

How does the EU deal with a member that doesn't like EU rules but which doesn't want to leave, as Britain is attempting to do?

And if the EU ejects Italy to protect the rest of the EU, what does that do to the lesson the EU is trying to apply to other states by making Britain's Brexit process a living Hell?

The EU is not, right now, a softer version of the Soviet Union. I freely admit that for former Soviet imperial provinces that want to join the West that meeting EU standards to join that body is a good path to be on. Contrasts are everything, no?

But if the EU gains political power at the expense of its nation-state members, it will inevitably destroy freedoms at the national and individual level to prevent member nations from leaving the EU and in keep them in compliance with EU rules.

I long for the days of the European Economic Community. That should have been the objective rather than a stepping stone to union and then empire.