I know some of you presidential candidates are not fans of the New York Times, but let’s look at a recent Times report concerning Greece and the refugee crisis anyway. A feature story last week explained how Greece is the eye of two different storms:

Greece is now ground zero for the two greatest challenges to afflict Europe in recent years: the debt crisis and Germany’s insistence on austerity as the only cure, and the backlash against the wave of human migration from war-torn and impoverished countries….

Greek officials warn that refugees might be stranded in the country for two years. So many are stranded at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, that the passenger terminals – usually where vacationers wait for ferries to the islands – are crammed with sleeping Syrians and others. On Saturday morning, a group of bewildered Korean tourists wandered into a terminal transformed into a Little Syria.

The migrant crisis is already a humanitarian disaster, and the situation is getting worse. The European Union is all but paralyzed, as I wrote last September in “Merkel Opens the Gates.” In that letter I quoted a column from The Economist that nicely illustrates the problem:

Policymakers are fizzing with ideas, from the use of development aid to bring recalcitrant transit countries into line to the strengthening of a Europe-wide border guard. Once the principle of shared responsibility for migrants is established, says another official, the numbers of relocated migrants can be scaled up, and new programmes established, without too much wrangling.

I responded with this:

What arrogance. Brussels will bring those “recalcitrant transit countries” back in line. The “wrangling” will be over once they establish the “principle of shared responsibility.”

“Shared responsibility” is exactly the principle the EU never manages to establish, regarding immigrants or anything else. Yet nameless officials still tell everyone not to expect “too much wrangling.”

Nothing is ever done in Europe without a great deal of wrangling.

That was more than six months ago. Is Europe any closer to a solution now? Hardly. If anything, the crisis is intensifying. The Paris terror attacks in November resulted in the reimposition of border controls through most of the previously open “Schengen” area. The attacks also convinced many Europeans that migrating Muslims are a security threat. An initial welcome turned into fear. One of the key leaders in Europe, Angelina Merkel of Germany, finds herself under intense political pressure because of an anti-immigrant backlash from voters.

Desperate for any solution, the EU is now seriously entertaining a deal to accept Turkey as a member in exchange for Turkey’s holding most of the migrants within its borders. That nascent deal is already running into the EU’s dysfunctional structure that demands unanimous approval by member nations for everything.

Stop right here. Those who originally designed the EU had visions of a “United States of Europe.” Yet the USA they wish to copy does not require every state to agree on everything. Can you imagine if we had to do so? Would Texas and Vermont ever find common ground? Florida and Montana? Hawaii and Mississippi? Of course not. The idea is absurd. Our government would have collapsed long ago if unanimity were the requirement.

We can amend our Constitution if 75% of the states agree. An amendment to the Maastricht Treaty, which is the organizing document for the EU, requires agreement by all 23 members.

The US has survived because we have a system of majority rule with minority rights. We require supermajorities for certain big decisions such as Constitutional amendments. We do not demand that every state agree to every major decision, because it would never happen. Paralysis would be the result – as Europe is now proving.

Giving Turkey a path to EU membership is problematic to Cyprus, which is a tiny island but an equally powerful EU member state, with technically the same vote and potential veto that Germany and France have. Cyprus can veto the refugee deal that the rest of Europe so desperately needs to make with Turkey.

The solution to this point has been for the large and economically powerful EU/Eurozone members to simply force their will on the smaller states, resolving short-term challenges at the cost of long-term unity. This week they did it to Cyprus. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the “EU Agrees on Deal to Send Migrants Back to Turkey.” Notice this part of the deal:

Turkey’s EU membership bid will also be accelerated, while steering clear of a conflict with Cyprus that has held up negotiations. Cyprus has an EU-backed veto on starting accession negotiations over a number of new policy areas, because Turkey doesn’t recognize its passports or allow ships and airplanes from Cyprus into its ports and airports.

Under the agreement, the EU commits by the end of June to start negotiations on aligning Turkey’s legislation on financial and budgetary affairs to EU law – a policy area, or chapter, that wasn't blocked by Cyprus.

Cyprus has legitimate concerns here. The EU solution is to simply ignore those concerns and plow ahead on other fronts. That approach will probably work, too, but each such episode pulls a few more bricks out of the EU superstructure. Bullying your smaller members is not consistent with the idea of an “ever-closer” union.