Europe must be very punitive otherwise the EU disintegrates into pre-WW2 factions.
The EU is well along the way to that already, without any help from the UK. What’s going to happen to Greece when the money runs out again? Spain with 24% unemployment (>50% for the young)? Italy which is split in two with deep structural problems, etc. Unless you’re Germany or France (which is displaying alarming symptoms of recent times) it must be quite worrying.
I didn’t vote to leave but I can understand the feelings of some of those that did. We see now the true colours of people like Juncker who are the unelected emperors of Europe. Things didn’t go exactly their way so they turn nasty (one suspects that they were like that all along when dealing with the upstart UK). Unlike the actual leaders of the individual EU countries, who are sad at the prospective loss and speak very diplomatically about it.
The EU started as the EEC, which was a collection of trade agreements and other things to facilitate this. I see an eventual return to this original state as, IMO, the economies, politics and aspirations of the remaining countries are just too disparate to remain glued together as a superstate in the long term.