You can however credit them with opening up bases/airfields and allowing the US to use them.

Those are US bases that the US maintains or they are part of a logistical agreement as part of NATO. The US has bases all over the world, agreements for base usage all over the world, etc. The EU directly benefits from those bases. No, I don't think credit is necessary.

Why?

Why does the lack of a fiscal union hamper their negotiations? This really gets into the theory of fiscal federalism but, essentially, without a fiscal union the vertical fiscal imbalance between member states cannot be closed. That is, Germany and France will always be Germany and France and Greece and Poland will always be Greece and Poland. Greece and Poland need vastly different things from trade deals than Germany and France.

List of governments by development aid on wikipedia would support these numbers (based on ODA data)

Ok, but you're speculating just as much as I am. The author didn't include their source on purpose.

Do you have any proof the EU passed sanctions because it's what the US wanted, rather than because it's what they wanted?

This question gives me the impression that you weren't paying attention. The US passed sanctions first, the EU took it's time. The US publicly lambasted the EU for dragging its feet which means it was pushing heavily in the background. The wikileak cables when it comes Ukraine goes to show that the EU have had a weak backbone when it comes to supporting Ukraine. As an example, Italy has been vocal about not wanting sanctions and not even wanting to renew sanctions.

There are also European troops training Ukrainians.

Now. Not originally. It took the US to commit before some NATO nations followed. To outside observers we can see lack of France training Ukraine. When you're the second largest EU military power and you're seemingly not engaged militarily in the survival of Ukraine it goes to show how far the EU really is willing to project its power. Maybe Libya left a bad taste in their mouth.

Those are incredibly useful for power projection far from home, but if your enemies capital and most of it's cities are within a couple hundred miles of your own airbases they aren't that necessary either.

This is moot? The author suggested that it has a "dependence" on forward bases, when in fact the US does not.

Sorry but to me your comment is mostly "America is the greatest hoo-ha" circlejerking.

Nothing I've outlined suggests that the US is the greatest. The author performed comparison to the US and I'm simply refuting the piece.