An emailer asks:

Those are all good questions, and I'm sorry to say I don't know enough about the specifics of the EU to give you any good answers (hence the lack of posts in a search of the blog), but where else but on a blog to flaunt my ignorance, so here go a few musings on the subject. Oh, and maybe someone more knowledgable will stop by and fill us both in on the specifics.

I believe the Dutch are leaning further toward a no vote, too, BTW. (See also here.)

I'm sure the pro-EU people would argue that the EU is not about sacrificing national sovereignty - it's more about economics (the EU is replacing the old EC, after all) and working toward common goals to carry more weight in international politics, while the opponents would argue it is exactly that - a sacrifice of identity that some people are suddenly realizing they rather like now that they are facing a growing possibility that they will lose it, and not just lose it, but actually vote to get rid of it. The opponents would also likely argue that the EU is somewhat magical thinking, or putting the cart before the horse in that European culture and interests are still distinct enough that imagining them coming together in a unified and consistent front is still wishful, and thus dangerous, thinking. So none of the pro-EU side would admit they should be combining seats at the UN, since they're not disolving their separate identities, and the loss in international power would defeat part of the purpose of the thing - though you and I would probably agree that they are and they probably should.

From here (this is a BBC site, so read with your appropriate filters on - what they say it means and what it really may mean or may come to mean may be very different things):

I wouldn't start caring much about it until it becomes a non-academic issue, which it is at this point. If the EU actually works, and there does come to be a United States of Europe that's really working like one, then we can talk about it. I think there was a CIA report (yeah, I know, do they even know the Soviet Union broke up yet?) that said the EU would be broken up regardless within the next fifteen years unless it radically alters some of its economic practices and demographic trends - things that are unlikely to happen. Oh yeah, here it is. Maybe creating a massive continent-wide beureaucracy in Brussels will just accellerate the trend by increasing the moribundity. Oh, and let's not forget that as long as they all have separate seats in the UN, it's just another factor that gives them all separate interests and makes a truly unified EU even less likely. Separate seats provide plenty of gaps to insert wedges, appeal to distinct interests and separate the one from the other. Take this part from that BBC page:

Now, they SAY it doesn't mean member states won't be able to go their own way, but in practice, how long until someone actually does try to go their own way on something, and the opponents start bringing all sorts of pressure to bear in order to make it completely impossible in practive. For instance, it's not hard to imagine a member state finding it impossible to pursue their own military goals or projects while their entire defense structure was tied down with all sorts of entangling alliances, contingencies and plans. It's not difficult to imagine that there would be all sorts of forces within the EU trying to do exactly that. Once power starts to consolidate, the tendency to accumulate more will be great.

Anyway, just a few thoughts. I really should read more about this.