Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy. (Politics General)

• Freedom of travel and work between member states (For example: I can work in Germany while living in the Netherlands, which I plan on doing later)  
• Easier trade between nations and easier ways to get trade treaties between other countries  
• Peace. Europe is a continent that has been in a lot of wars and both of the world wars. The EU prevents this from happening again, because we’re all technically united now.
   
  Cons:  
• It’s rather undemocratic. I can vote on the European parliament, but not the council of Europe or anything else. Those are selected by every country’s government so you don’t have a say in that  
• It’s kind of weak. On the world stage, the EU is rather weak. They’re too scared about doing something about Russia, because then they’ll increase gas prices and stuff  
• We, the people who live in the EU, don’t really know what goes on there. The politicians aren’t well known and it has not even the slightest form of a direct democracy. If we really demand something, there’s no way to reach one of the politicians to actually get the message through as far as I’m aware. We did try it and succeeded one time though.”
   

They acknowledge that the powers that be in the EU WILL actively ignore the common man and they don’t seem interested in fighting the broken parts of the system to change that reality.

Beyond economic and social objectives—the development and modernization of European production, the expansion of import-export exchanges inside and outside the pool, and a converging improvement of living standards for the workers—the Schuman Plan was also defined along essential political objectives. By bringing France and Germany to a factual solidarity, it was expected that any future war between them would be both unthinkable and impossible. French-German relations had reached a deadlock on unresolved questions (the status of the Saar, the German rearmament, and free access to the Ruhr’s coal), paralyzing, if not jeopardizing, the European integration process. In Monnet’s view, similar to the United States’ position, such a situation could not last given the Cold War’s context: a fast and ambitious initiative was needed, on the one hand, to anchor Western Germany to the West and make it participate in Western Europe’s defense and, on the other hand, to keep German industrial cartels and rearmament capacities under close control. In exchange for this economic concession, an opportunity was given to Germany to reenter international politics with equal rights for the first time since the end of the war. By accepting and endorsing the idea, despite strong opposition in his country (mainly social democrat and communist parties), Konrad Adenauer, the German chancellor, played a decisive role in the success of the plan. After Germany, the Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg) and Italy agreed to enter the discussions by accepting the idea of a supranational authority.