> See the thing is when we studied law in Europe a long time ago we were sold on this dream that Europe would become like the United States

Eeh, what school was this? I think most public schools (at least those me and people near me) attended, it was taught that EU is nothing like the US, as we're all individual countries and everyone wants to remain as such, but we still want to collaborate although we're somewhat different from each other, and been killing each other since forever. I guess that's why second world war and similar things are such a big part of our history lessons, rather than diving deep into the history of US or Australia or whatever.

> It really takes the soul out of you. The way people work in the US and China is completely different. They DO things. Europeans just talk about doing things, and then talk behind each others backs.

For me the difference is between politicians and people actually doing the work. And my personally experience points towards this split existing equally everywhere, in China, in the US, in Europe and everywhere else I've been. The higher up the political ranks you get, the more people like to talk, the less they like doing.

I feel like this is very evident in the US too, looking at how productive and efficient companies are vs research labs living on grants vs federal government vs local governments, the scale is completely different, and same goes in Europe as well, at least from what I can tell.

Evidentially, in the high ranks of the European Parliament, things are exactly the same as higher ranking politicians everywhere, they just like to talk and grandstand and pretend to know what they're talking about. But I think this is true in the US too, or in China, these sort of people just like talking and discussing things forever, for better or worse.

> it was taught that EU is nothing like the US, as we're all individual countries and everyone wants to remain as such

It's written into the treaties that this will not be so. The goal of the EU is "ever closer union" and the people at the top of it routinely talk about a federal Europe in which the individual states disappear.