“The EU money should be for employment, not for cows.” Even back in 2005 Tony Blair was asking for a new European Union: more investment, research, innovation, and training, rather than 40% of the budget being spent (as is still more or less the case today) on an agricultural sector that employs just 5% of its workforce. And it’s hard to argue with that; the EU seems increasingly remote from the problems its citizens face. But is it the EU itself that’s the problem, or the way national politicians and governments put policies into action?

Take the European council meeting on Thursday and Friday this week. We’re set for a clash on migration policy. Something big is at stake: the EU’s principles of solidarity and respect for human rights.

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Putting up walls to keep out migrants is not only immoral, it threatens the bloc’s internal free movement of goods and people. It risks blowing up the passport-free Schengen agreement, one of the EU’s signature achievements. With populist forces gaining strength, the battle will be hard-fought. The very foundations of the EU are now in doubt. Is this what EU citizens really want?

To be sure, the EU failed to anticipate the scope of the 2015 migration crisis. But today’s dismal turn of events has more to do with how national politicians have behaved than with the European project itself. Politicians should explain the complexities of migration rather than pander to anxieties and alarm citizens. Throughout history, Europe’s very fabric was born of age-old movements of entire populations. With so many desperate people on the move today, seeking safety or simply a better life for themselves, migration cannot simply be stopped. Instead it must be managed.

But there’s an obvious discrepancy between what the EU commission is proposing and what national governments are ready to do. For instance, Brussels institutions have published a plan for Africa, calling for spending of €32bn (£28bn) over six years and focusing particularly on infrastructure. Will the leaders of EU states accept it, even though it’s a bare minimum? Or will they try to take the easier route of building walls and barriers in order to allay the very fears some of them have fanned?

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Look at the facts: the number of migrants arriving in Europe by sea has dropped spectacularly – in Italy, by over 70% compared to last year. But that reality has gone almost unnoticed. There is no large-scale migration crisis in Europe now. Instead, what we’re seeing are domestic political crises in which the theme of migration is exploited by demagogues.

Europe’s image has suffered as a result of teetering from one crisis to the next. We almost forget that the EU’s founding ambition has in fact been accomplished. A magnificent common architecture was erected after the devastation of 20th-century war, it was built up through stages, thanks to the vision of a handful of great political leaders.

Now the enthusiasm of its early days has faded, and what remains of the union is a complex institutional system resting on values that are not always respected. From 1950, the road to Europe was built one step at a time. First came the Coal and Steel Community (aimed at avoiding the risk of secret re-arming, as Germany had done in the interwar period); then came the common market, the parliament and the commission; then the euro, the dismantling of internal borders, and attempts to forge a common foreign and defence policy.

Each time this process of European unification has stalled, the need for better governance has became clearer. But instead, national egotism has morphed into the twin tigers of nationalism and populism, and citizens looking to Europe to fulfil the needs not met by their governments (security, jobs and welfare) have become frustrated. Emotionally, they still expect much more.

Europe, whether we like it or not, has penetrated our conscience deeply. The profound rage of remainers in the UK is just one example. For many people Europe embodies hope for their personal future, as well as for their country: the hope that “Europe” will be able to do more and govern better than national elites. This has certainly held true in my country, Italy.

Naturally, the elites who make decisions for Europe are the same ones who decide everything at a national level. Within the EU’s complex and now strained institutional set-up it is often the member states who take the decisions: this happens within the European council of leaders and ministers, in a qualified-majority voting system. And sensitive decisions must often be unanimous, which gives each state a veto power.

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The dominance of the nation state also goes some way to explaining why the needs of citizens – in terms of jobs and social policies – are paid insufficient attention. Take the Maastricht treaty. It has been essentially used in the name of economic and fiscal rigour – a topic dear to the heart of the conservative European People’s party, which has long acted as the de facto ruler in Brussels. That is largely what has turned the eurozone into a bogeyman for people who care about social justice. But here’s the thing: only the budget deficit and GDP parameters of the Maastricht treaty were enacted. The parts that pointed to social policies have been left to languish. Who is aware today that the Lisbon treaty, in article 3, talks of goals relating to social progress and economic growth, and that it even mentions full employment?

If we want to understand the roots of our distress over Europe, we should look more closely at the way national politicians have interpreted the union’s treaties. Its social ambitions seem to have vanished, just as its principles on asylum have been hammered by national leaders. Domestic politics are at fault – not the EU itself, whose architecture must be improved and strengthened, but whose policies can be changed. Let’s cut the EU some slack. It is imperfect, but much of what has gone wrong is the result of decisions or attitudes made at a national level. Scapegoating the EU is part of today’s unchained madness.

• Antonella Rampino is a journalist and political commentator based in Rome