The European Union (EU) is a supranational entity that is formed by twenty-eight European states, and it is both an economic and political entity. The EU is often perceived as an immutable entity and the possibility of its collapse has not been explored in detail by political experts and scholars. However, in the EU are present several issues that might endanger its future existence. Overall, these issues create an imbalance of power that affect the stability and the aims of the EU project. To date, experts have focused on the analysis of the effects rather than the causes of EU’s fragility. This thesis argues that the causes of contemporary issues are found in the past. This thesis focuses on the imbalance of power in the EU, unpacking this through both contemporary and historical analysis of the EU. Due to the broadness of the topic, the thesis focuses mainly on three key aspects: the history of European attempts of unity, the current situation of the EU, and the nationalist-populist sentiment that re-emerged in Europe in the recent years. The thesis examines these three themes from a historical and political point of view, using policy and media analysis as wells as core political theory. It examines the nationalist-populist phenomenon through a case study on the Italian Five Star Movement, arguably the first openly populist party to govern a major EU country. Overall, the thesis demonstrates that the EU is burdened by historical legacies and, if it not solved, these will lead to the failure of the EU project
