A substantial part of the Brexit case is the simple idea that the European Union has ‘gone too far’. Too big, too clumsy, too intrusive, too undemocratic – in short, too much.

Oddly enough in the UK debate both Leave and Remain warmly agree on this. No serious British Remain person tries actually to defend the way the EU works, or argue that it is in fact effective and democratic – rather the argument is made that we’re simply ‘better off’ staying where we are in this unhappy flawed formation while working to ‘reform’ the EU from within.

Within the EU itself the argument has been made for years that the EU is like a bicycle. It has to keep moving forward (ie towards More EU) or fall over and crash:

“Europe is like a bicycle: it must keep moving forward or it will fall over“.

Europe should be like that: a journey we make together. We have to agree where we want to go and how to get there.

The problem now is that the big heavy EU we now have can no longer agree on the where or the how. More Eurozone or less? Less Schengen, or more?

Down in southern Europe, the cost of these contradictions soars and soars:

The measures passed will almost certainly be recessionary, fail to boost Greece’s competitiveness and will, in any case, not be implemented.

Short-term politics has once again trumped economics – thereby delaying any sensible resolution of the Greek crisis, and deepening and extending its effects. In particular, the 2017 elections in Austria and Germany mean that there is now little appetite for major concessions on debt relief.

Yet the economic facts cannot be ignored for ever.

Greece’s debt position remains unsustainable in the long term. And the recessionary measures being implemented by Greece’s Government will undoubtedly lead to poorer business performance and will hit the self-employed particularly hard. That in turn will make the worker to pensioner ratio even less sustainable.

Unless a package of targeted reforms aimed at improving Greek competitiveness becomes a priority, instead of more tax and recessionary measures, the Greek pension system and the Greek economy will be destroyed.

The Greek economy will be destroyed! Welcome to modern Europe, folks. Sauve qui peut.

Hence the speech this week by Donald Tusk, former PM of Poland and now president of the European Council:

Obsessed with the idea of instant and total integration, we failed to notice that ordinary people, the citizens of Europe do not share our Euro-enthusiasm. Disillusioned with the great visions of the future, they demand that we cope with the present reality better than we have been doing until now.

Today, Euro-scepticism, or even Euro-pessimism have become an alternative to those illusions. And increasingly louder are those who question the very principle of a united Europe. The spectre of a break-up is haunting Europe and a vision of a federation doesn’t seem to me like the best answer to it.

We need to understand the necessity of the historical moment. As the President of the European Council I want to start an honest and open debate on the subject.

Obsession! Disillusion! Pessimism! The spectre of a break-up! (Strange mixed metaphor – Ed).

Meanwhile in France former Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine has been urging the bicycle to stop for a well-earned breather, and think anew about the validity of ‘national’ interests:

In a book out earlier this year, “Le Monde Au Défi” (“Challenge to the World”) he defended the idea that the so-called “international community” doesn’t exist — either in politics or the economy. Nothing can fully transcend national interests, he argues: not post-war ideals, nor post-Soviet illusions, nor the globalized market.

The only area where a common purpose could be found now, he argued, would be on environmental issues. Summits on global warming, or preserving biodiversity, offer the only real opportunities to overcome national barriers, he told me.

Back in Europe, Védrine said, the lyrical approach favored by integrationists “means that you try to shame governments by always complaining about their ‘national selfishness’ etc. But these are legitimate national interests we are talking about.”

As Védrine sees it, EU governments should solemnly call for “a pause” in further integration. He doesn’t think that a joint European initiative by France and Germany if U.K. voters choose to leave the bloc on June 23 would be useful. “France,” he said, “will not be strong until its economy is repaired, through fiscal discipline and structural reforms on the model of what Gerhard Schröder did in Germany.”

Védrine thinks that the U.K. leaving the union would be a major blow to Europe — and probably prefers to keep in a country that has always been pragmatic about the EU, and steered away from the intellectual approach more common in France or Germany. I ask him as I leave his office: What would he say to a Brexit partisan?

“That he or she is stupid,” Védrine said. “The U.K. has all that’s good in Europe, and isn’t involved in the bad stuff — Schengen and the euro. Why leave?”

Haha a trenchant final point.

Even if EU leaders manage to identify a smarter way to do things and above all identify a coherent approach to both the Eurozone space and the non-Eurozone space, they don’t know how to get there. How to change any EU treaties in that sense when some countries such as Netherlands (and Poland?) will need or insist on a referendum and maybe vote down pretty much anything?

The EU now finds itself like an obese middle-aged person trying to climb a steep tall sand-dune. Over the years it’s laboured its way up to a reasonable height with an agreeable view, but it’s now stuck – any movement upwards or sideways will lead to uncontrolled sliding back downwards.

Hence the case for a Brexit vote. Only a massive jolt like that will compel serious radical political engagement across the EU and beyond about what the whole European project needs to look like in the coming decades.

This has to happen, sooner or later. Better to attempt this under controlled conditions rather than wait for the forces of disintegratory disillusion and pessimism to prevail?