Recent polling suggests that young Europeans remain among the EU’s strongest supporters, with 90% favouring greater unity among member states and 78% wanting the EU to have more resources to act.
Europe is living through an autumn of unusual discontent, and public anger on the streets could increasingly turn against the EU itself if it cannot show why cooperation makes people’s lives better.
The EU has itself adapted, as fully paid-up members remain the core but non-members such as Norway and Switzerland participate on defence, security, energy and economic policy.
If European cooperation becomes better at preserving institutions than at responding to citizens’ concerns, the discontent now spilling on to the streets could increasingly turn against the EU itself.
Effective sovereignty is the capacity to shape outcomes on energy, trade, migration or defence that no European state can control by itself.
The very traits that infuriate Eurosceptics – slow decision-making, endless negotiations and messy compromises – are, counterintuitively, sources of strength for Europe.
The EU also has an interest in bringing Britain back into closer cooperation too, even if not exactly as it looked pre-Brexit.
Whether political change comes through elections, protests or new compromises in Brussels, public discontent cannot simply be negotiated away.
The electoral consequences of the failure to get a grip on this public anger are already with us.