Eurosceptics vs. Europhiles... and the middle ground

Take a look at these two videos where the sparks fly on the floor of the European Parliament over Greece staying or leaving (a "Grexit") the EU. It also illustrates two visions of the EU, though I doubt either one speaks for the average EU citizen.

The two speakers are

-Nigel Farage, who ironically represents the UK in the EU Parliament and yet uses his seat to blast the EU's very existence. He wants to facilitate Greece's exit in this video, but also wants to facilitate the UK's exit in 2017 (a "Brexit")

Eurosceptic Nigel Farage (UK) on Grexit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai43B588_co

-Guy Verhofstadt who represents the Netherlands and believes in a unified "United States of Europe" and wants to keep Greece in the EU

Europhile Guy Verhofstadt (Belgium) on Grexit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P84tN0z4jqM
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Does one seem more convincing to you?

Nigel Farage is after all the "oral assassin" and Guy definitely has that Belgian accent. From Farage's side, like other conservatives, the EU is a "project" of elites that does not respect not only the differences among countries of Europe but also the fact that they have elected representative governments, as some major aspects of the EU like the EU Comissioners (different from the Parliament he sits in) are not elected. Having said that, other EU aspects are elected, like the seat in Parliament that he occupies. The EU system of institutions is a little more complex than the US, they have a few more bodies and sometimes they seem to do redundant functions, another major issue.

From Guy's side, many like him believe that European countries won't have real clout on the world stage unless they band together, they won't be able to compete with the big boys like the US, China, and Russia if Europe is a smorgasbord of smaller countries each going their own way. Having said that, the UK would still be in a good spot alone as it has a strong economy, is still fairly large, and typically has its own sort of union with the US on just about all foreign policy matters, something called the "special relationship" in international relations. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Relationship

Belgium, however, would not really be a big player on the world stage without the EU. So Guy believes a United States of Europe is necessary, he actually said that in another video. Farage believes that it is wrong to try to replace the original set of states that are elected with a new Eurostate, sometimes termed a "universalist" project, that is not really elected. Either way, there is either unity or chaos, but the question is whether the unity is at the larger scale or more national scale.

"Eurosceptic" is the term usually used for those who are anti-EU. Eurosceptics won big in the 2014 elections around Europe. They often ran on anti-immigrant platforms. The current refugee crisis is actually fanning those flames as some Europeans are looking at the thousands pouring in, needing jobs in countries that already have high unemployment.

Others, though, would argue that fertility rates and population numbers have been low in countries like Germany so they could use more people. Then there is the issue of many Europeans fearing that Islamic immigrants will dilute their culture.

The middle ground
As in so many "left vs. right" debates in the US, often neither side speaks for the majority opinion.
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/how-europhiles-eurosceptics-oversimplify-the-eu-9324
This article mentions how both sides draw caricatures:

-Europhiles have lumped being simply nationalists and pro-smaller scale government with being anti-semitic and ethnically-intolerant. Meanwhile, Europhiles paint themselves as crusaders against intolerance, even though " there is very little the EU does concretely to fight bigotry, besides passing nicely-worded resolutions."