Today, yes, but the ideological goal of the EU is to convert it into a US-style federal union (in recent times some of them try to deny this because reality is

Today, yes, but the ideological goal of the EU is to convert it into a US-style federal union (in recent times some of them try to deny this because reality is closing in, but it has always been there). Hence large transfer payments between EU countries in the form of "structural adjustment funds" and euro policy, etc.