That's wrong actually. It was the US that suggested the partnership that has developed into todays EU, after WW2 (although the idea was started by Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi before then, in his book that is almost prophetc - Paneuropa)
The idea of the Americans lead to the Coal and Steel union which developed into the Europäische Gemeinschaft (EG) which became the EU in the 1990s.

The reason to have a Coal and Steel union was to tie together the economies of France and Germany so tightly that it would be economic suicide for one to start a war against the other.

And in case you haven't noticed, the EU is more of a puppet to the US than any kind of counterweight.

I started supporting it when I was at uni, and Asia was growing at a fantastic rate. All the ideals of socialism seemed to be dead or dying, and everyone was fed up with Europe being a playground of superpowers. The EU seemed to me and my friends like the only way that the the European countries could stand up for themselves on a global perspective. I was pretty active in the campaign ahead of the referendum on EU membership for Sweden.

In hindsight I am not completely convinced that it was the right thing to do, but at the time it felt completely right. The EU was clearly a successful peace project and not necessarily quite as "evil" as socialists and others had been preaching for years. I thought it could become whatever Europeans made it.. At least on paper, it is very democratic. My friends and I thought that if we weren't in it, we couldn't influence it, and that there was no other possible future for Europe anyway.

Also, I was quite passionate about solidarity with the Eastern European countries in an organisation called the PanEuropean Youth Movement. One of its main objectives in the 1990s was to try to get Eastern Europe to join the EU as soon as possible - for the EU to lower it's economic entry criteria so they'd qualify, and convince the Eastern Europeans that it was a good thing. At the time, it seemed like an almost impossible objective. But those objectives have been achieved. The only reason to support this was to improve living standards which fell so horribly in the 1990s.

Unfortunately nobody (at least not me!) considered the consequences of a situation whereby all European countries apart from Russia were members.. such a scenario was so far off in the future. The EU was never intended to be an "us vs them" type of situation in regards to other Europeans. The Paneuropean youth movement is a bit questionable to be honest, but back then, I completely agreed with all its goals. Coudenhove-Kalergi had said (in the 1920s!) that Brits and Russians would never want to be part of a pan-Europe anyway, so there was no point in trying to accommodate either. Not completely off the mark.