> So first you'd need to turn the clock back 40 years and explain why anything deeper than a market is necessary.

I think that’s pretty obvious, when you’re trying to compete with China or the US head-on, isn’t it?

Do you really think "just a market" of european nations will ever be able to stand alone on the world stage, being able to negotiate on eye level with another superpower?

Do you think we will be able to get our own Silicon Valley ever, when startups have to deal with 28 tax laws, 28 consumer laws, 28 different languages, 28 different regulations for everything? No European startup has ever actually managed that. They always first expand in their home country, and then to the US or China – the largest unified markets with unified laws and unified languages, where they can grow better. And companies starting in those markets always have an advantage.

Do you think in "just a market", our legislatives and executives would ever have been able to regulate companies as large as Google? Companies so large that if you ban them from your country, half your country’s productivity is lost over night? If you try to regulate them when you’re just Denmark, Google will just stop running in your country. No European country alone would be powerful enough to regulate such large multinationals anymore. Only together are we large enough that these multinationals have to cave.

Do you think negotiating a separate treaty for each of the things we currently do via EU law would be better? Treaties take years to negotiate, and will run for decades. You can’t just replace them, or change them. On the other hand, every 4 years we can just replace all EU institutions, and the parliamentarians, and change policy. This allows a much more democratic decision process.

Telling facts is not "another set of propaganda", so we can start with that part first. Then we can go to the points which are more opinion-based and present multiple sides. The first part alone should be enough to ease many fears.

That aside: It isn't undemocratic to not do a ballot. In a parliamentary democracy parliaments can decide most things themselves (even all, depending on the country). That's what they get elected for in the first place.