Ben Ryan from the Theos think tank says the bloc has become weaker following a gradual shift of focus away from peace, solidarity and morality.
Warning the bloc has become overly focused on economics, his comments come as David Cameron has today branded proposals by the EU to stop migrants from within the bloc from claiming benefits in the UK as "not good enough".
As part of his effort to keep his EU reforms on-track, the Prime Minister had called for a four-year ban on EU migrants claiming in-work benefits in the UK, however, a compromise proposed by the EU would see the rule applied to all member states and would only come into force when a country could show it's public services would under severe pressure.
Speaking on Premier Christian Radio's News Hour programme Ben Ryan from Theos said David Cameron will hope to influence next year's EU referendum: "It's important I think for David Cameron to make it appear that he's got something out of this just so when, as is anticipated, he comes out that actually he's in favour of the European Union, he can make some sort of case he's found a way of making Britain more influential in it".
"On his other priorities, I think [on] some of them he's quite close. I suspect he'll got some sort of legal protection for non-Euro states in the EU. I suspect he'll get something on increasing competitiveness in the internal market. I don't think he'll get anything at all on a commitment to end ever closer union."
"When the European project started in the 1950s, it was founded particularly by Christian democrat politicians. It was founded with a very firm sense of its own moral identity. It was there to support peace, solidarity, subsidiarity and to improve living and working conditions.
"The arguement is that, over time, that's drifted a bit and actually we've seen an awful lot of economic measures come in which have ignored those original principles and as a result have left the EU weaker.
"Economic performance is always variable - it goes up and down - whereas having a very strong sense of morality and a powerful sense that you exist for a moral mission is a much stronger base for political union."