The replacement of the separate countries of Europe with a single state —The European Union—was predicted by Professor Arnold Toynbee in "A Study Of History" as part of the decline of a civilization.

Toynbee observed that as a civilization collapsed, the separate countries making up the civilization merged into one unit—a universal state:

"…these societies starting as unities on the cultural plane, without being united on the political plane. This régime is favourable to social and cultural progress; but its price is chronic warfare between the local states;…,after a long drawn out 'time of troubles', is belatedly retrieved by the establishment of a universal state."—Part I 'The Shape Of History': Chapter 7 Hellenic and Chinese models

Toynbee thereby predicted the transition of Europe from a number of quarrelling nations, into a single community known as 'The European Union', but Toynbee also made it clear that such unity was a symptom of disintegration not growth:

"Universal states are, let us remind ourselves, essentially negative institutions. In the first place, they arise after, and not before, the breakdowns of the civilizations to which they bring political unity."
—Part V 'The Disintegrations Of Civilizations': Chapter 32 Universal States: Ends Or Means

While Toynbee was accurate in his observations he had no clear idea of the mechanism involved. He did not realize that a nation was a shared understanding, and the process of decline was the collapse of this shared understanding into senility; which is revealed by these nations failing to prevent unarmed barbarians from colonising their territory.

Nor did Toynbee realise that such senility is a loss of a sense of national identity: the Englishman with the stiff-upper lip who eats stodgy food and plays cricket; the humourless German who eats cabbage and sausages; the excitable, verbose, Frenchman who drinks wine; they have all been replaced by citizens with no sensible tradition. The political borders which previously separated peoples with unique, distinct notions of duty and justice—a nationality, have become meaningless lines on a map indicating where these nations once were, for now all these once different peoples have become united by selfishness, which is a lack of notions about duty or justice other than self-interest—a rabble; whose only borders are those set by geography.

The citizens of a universal state are merely a mass of selfish individuals, bound together by a corrupt, inept, bureaucracy, intent only upon exploiting each other, while avoiding all demands of self-sacrifice; ruled by the superstition that their unfettered fears and fancies spawn, such as 'Global Warming' or 'Multiculturalism'.