When I want to go EU_5 I just ask friends if they have any low-lvl alts and sometimes I ask people on other servers. Then I go with 2 of my friends to EU_5 and wait. Sooner or later, if fun isn't destroyed by lvl 17+ archer/thrower, we end up with some nice numbers ~10 players maybe. Once we got to ~17 (whoa!)
What I suggest is to make new characters instantly lvl 20. It's still a peasant compared to all other characters but at least it's a useful one. Back in the days, when a peasant could find a peasant in an enemy team, he kept himself entertained with fighting the other one but now there is no need to have lvl1 peasants, leveling it only stops other people from creating alts.
EU_5 was a good idea but for a small community like this, with that system that says all the time 'Teams are not fair' because of low population on EU_5, there is no need for that server anymore. It could serve as artificial, updated EU4.