McCormick, who is the Jean Monnet Chair professor at Indiana University-Purdue, argued that old ways of thinking lead both academics and laymen to misjudge the European Union's influence.
"It's interesting to me that there's an inverse relationship between the success of an EU policy area and the number of people studying it," he said.
Singling out foreign policy in particular, he joked "that there are actually more people studying the international effects of the EU than there are actually people working in Brussels in external relations".
In contrast, McCormick said that "one of the big areas of success for the EU is trade policy and yet very few people are studying European Union trade policy."
Influence, but 'no headlines'
The professor said the EU's international presence through the size of its market and the possibility of accession was very marked. He cited other areas, notably environmental policy and democracy-promotion, where EU influence was felt even though "it doesn't grab the headlines."
"The thing is it is a very gradual progress … You don't suddenly get a revolution in Ukraine and they say 'Oh yes, we want to join the European Union.' So it misses a headline and I think that's part of the reason people don't really pick up on what's happening," he argued.
Indeed, Ukraine has repeatedly voiced its EU hopes despite the return of the reputedly 'pro-Russian' Viktor Yanukovych to the presidency.
On environmental policy, McCormick stressed in particular the striking differences and, in his view, the lead that the EU has in terms of public transport and recycling. Citing the example of unleaded fuel, McCormick said that in the past environmental standards often began in California, spreading to the rest of the United States and later Europe.
"It seems to me things have now been reversed," he argued, "Things start in Germany, they move to the rest of the European Union, and then they move to the United States."
"And a good example of this is the REACH programme on chemicals which the United States finds itself having to respond to because if the US chemical manufacturers want to have access to the European market they have to have European standards," he said.
He argued Europe's impact in this area was in some ways independent of the EU, as "even if political leaders are unable to achieve agreement on climate change – you know the 2020 programme, whatever – if ordinary individuals are changing their attitude then cumulatively you're going to see big change."
'Considered dead' many times before
McCormick said he was optimistic about the EU's future. He conceded this was somewhat difficult in the current crisis, "I agree talking right now, when I've got my copy of The Economist and it's talking of the imminent failure of the euro especially now that Italy is having problems, to say that I can still be optimistic about the future against the background of the euro, it's difficult."
However, he argued the current pessimism was hardly unprecedented, saying "I mean the number of times that the EU or the European Economic Community has been counted out – multiple times – it seems to have been considered dead, dying, comatose, whatever, more often than it's been regarded as a success"
McCormick argued many European problems are in fact far more widely shared. On the future of Europe's welfare systems and long-term budgetary problems he said "this is not typically a European problem, it's an advanced economy problem."
More generally, he insisted that the EU's force of attraction as a model was still evident in other regional organisations, saying "The African Union is almost a direct copy of the European Union. The chances of the AU succeeding are pretty slim. They're going to have to work very, very hard."
However, he added that "almost every country in the world now is involved in some exercise in regional integration."
