The writer (who once described their perspective as being somewhere between a Euro-agnostic and an incremental intergovernmentalist, with leanings towards functionalism - specifically, neo-functionalism - rarely, if ever, subscribing to the purely federalist viewpoint, given that their suspicions of supranationalism were equal only to their fears of not-so-splendid political and economic isolation) takes on the granddaddy of all contemporary debates...