The EU as a broader organisation wants that, and over time there has been a transfer of power from member countries to Brussels.

Referenda are routinely misrepresented in propaganda during debates, and often become proxies for unrelated issues and malcontents (brexit, anyone?). In practice, when you discuss actual issues, pro-Union sentiment is more widespread than reported, and most people agree that "it makes sense" to travel in the direction of closer integration. Even the issues where we kinda "agreed to disagree", like on electric plugs, there is constant moaning as soon as one moves across borders.

For some reason we never see any polls, just opinion pieces, but I'd wager that

(1) people think cooperation is a good idea

(2) and they also want to keep their own countries and identities

Once we start moving towards a single country, the inevitable question becomes, which rules and values should people follow? Which country gets to assert its way of life on the others? Or perhaps the virtual state known as the "EU" should assert its own values (whatever they may be)?

Now imagine expanding the EU to Turkey. Can we change their legislation to be more liberal? Or should the EU countries follow the hard line authoritarian islam that Erdogan pushes? No one is willing to change. And no one has to as long as the EU stays as a form of cooperation between nations.

If the EU pushes towards a single country, power struggles over values will follow.

The Lisbon Treaty was, in practice, a repackaging of the earlier "EU Constitution". In general, people seem fine with the EU behaving more like a single country, as long as it doesn't _represent_ itself that way. Most people, say, don't have a problem with the Working Time Directive (which is quite a country-ish thing to do; there are actual countries with less unified employment rules than the EU) but would be a lot less comfortable with cosmetic stuff (like calling the Lisbon Treaty a constitution, even though it clearly is one).

The EU constitution was approved in half the referendums that were held. Also, opposing a concrete constitution does not mean opposing European unification in general.

Read the thread from the beginning...