[Jonnorth]

To a degree you are correct but not fully. Countries join the EU because it provides economic prosperity, investment, stable currency and great many other economic benefits at least for the new members. Obvious other advantages are that we can throw our combined wait around for better trade deals and other geopolitical stuff. Being admitted in to the EU is very convinient as a stamp of approval of sorts for some standards: democracy, classic liberal principles(private property, rule of law, etc), fight against corruption etc The downsides is that we have harmonized regulations to a degree and some common policies.

Right now the problems of the EU are structural mostly in which we need reform. We need to reform our decision making apparatus to a degree OR at the least tackle the migration, euro and debt issues separately. This will come in due time. Actually if Russia joins the EU then we might have a counter balance to the French/German interest. A Polish/Russian block would be possible in such case. That is currently just speculation.

As for Russia, well the main benefits of the EU is what Russia desperately needs right now. Life is not going to get better in Russia without those things. Not in a meaningful way at least.

You are talking about corruption, but you apparently forgot that, according to the report of European Commissioner for Domestic Policy Cecilia Malmström, corruption costs the EU economy at least 120,000,000,000 euros annually. The report also notes that insufficient attention is paid to the fight against corruption and this problem is often ignored.

[JohnRawls]

The European Union IS an anti-Russian alliance. Cause in order to put pressure on Russia, the UE, under pressure from the United States, introduced in March 2014 an extensive list of sanctions against Russia. As a result, both Russia and the EU suffered significant economic losses. However, Russia, partly due to import substitution, and partly thanks to the help of China, was able to more or less cope with the consequences of sanctions, while the US did not begin to reimburse the EU for losses incurred from anti-Russian sanctions.

The result of the sanctions was that the EU suffered much greater economic losses than Russia. Why do they need to impose sanctions if they are not inclined against the one to whom they direct them?

The losses for Europe were minimal because we can take the hit, our combined GDP is around 1/15 to 1/20th of Russia right now due to Russian inflation and other factors. On top of that, the sanctions were justified. Russia annexed Crimea and also supported a rebellion in Ukraine. Both events are sanction worthy situations. We couldn't just do nothing honestly. There are consequences to such actions and Russian leadership knew this. We are not planning to cancel the sanctions also any time soon because Russia has not changed its stance on the situation. If you don't like that Ukraine went pro-EU then Russia just needs to fix its economy and actually provide the same standard of living as Europe, otherwise it is not unexpected that great many former Warshaw pact and CIS states want to join Europe instead of Russia. We just provide a better standard of living and Russia can't do that due to it being a corrupt state.

[JohnRawls]

You are talking about corruption, but you apparently forgot that, according to the report of European Commissioner for Domestic Policy Cecilia Malmström, corruption costs the EU economy at least 120,000,000,000 euros annually. The report also notes that insufficient attention is paid to the fight against corruption and this problem is often ignored.

120 Billion out of 18 Trillion Euros is nothing. That is basically less than 1% our economy.(Actual number is probably larger though) Not perfect but pretty okay. On the other hand in Russia, the corruption was estimated to be 320 billion USD in 2009. That was around 1/3rd of your economy. EU and Russia are in different leagues of their own. The scales of our economies don't compare. We have a far larger economy than Russia but Russia has more money in corruption which should tell you some things.