See the thing that confuses me here is that the whole thing about a 'pan European cultural perspective' need not have anything to do with superpowers. If we're talking geopolitical power, which as Comrade Mao said comes from the barrel of a gun, not literary criticism, f'rex, the EU literally has armies that march with broomsticks because it's too cheap to give them guns. Put that against Putin's bombers that are very, very good at blowing up babies and the Russians will steamroll it in a war that'd last an hour. One minute to bomb, fifty nine to laugh.

By actual standards of great power, let alone superpower status, the EU is in the Brazil tier, if that much, in real world terms.

And none of that clarifies what a 'pan European culture' even means in real world terms.