What is the EU for?

When swivel eyed Xenophobes like myself make irresponsible calls for Britain to leave the EU, more level headed folk are quick to point out my mistakes. They say that many of today’s problems are too big for individual countries to cope with. We need to act together with others on these issues. So in today’s paranoid global world, which problems could these be? Well terrorism and crime do not respect national borders they say, so neither should we. Which I suppose explains this:

Britain is facing a clash with Brussels over EU plans to grant sweeping rights to foreigners ordered to leave - whether failed asylum seekers or Islamic extremists facing deportation.

So the British Government after years of politically correct inaction has finally realised that there are people who should not be welcome in our country. What is the reaction of that Supra National Body, whose reason for existence is to deal with such issues? They tell us we can’t do anything. So what was the basis of that argument again?