Enlightened despotism is despotism nonetheless
George Buchan
National interests are essentially the objectives set by government primarily for its survival and protection and secondarily for the assurance of the wealth, prosperity and well-being of the state. However, European Union member states are wrestling ideologically and pragmatically with a politics of pan-European mono-ism in which they have already more or less given up the idea of self-determination by practically and pragmatically outsourcing their sovereignty and power to the European Union, and in addition doing so through avoiding the democratic process.
In circumventing the democratic process, national interests as we have come to know them in modern Europe will have no objective reason, nature or ideology to be based upon the peoples of Europe because they have not freely chosen, consented, accepted or have the ability to influence the legislative process and its products. More dangerously, then, the common European interest has no natural reason not to be purely a collection of special, political and governmental interests. Without democratic checks and balances and a tendency towards transparency and bottom-up governance, the common European interest remains that of the political bureaucracy in Brussels.
It is therefore no surprise that the common European interest is always couched in terms of what is best for Europe as a whole, but when the peoples of Europe are not involved in what this means, it leaves supranational government to decide what is best for its people, and this is the historically sure path to decreased freedom and liberty, and increased governmental scope and expansion.
In the EU, just like any other form of despotism or dictatorship, democracy is given up in preference for stability.