Pros and Cons of the Federal Europe

I don't think that an entity of that size and diversity would survive for a long time. We're already seeing much smaller countries like the UK or Spain struggling to stop the independence movements.

Having said that, I believe that it might happen in the future once some other Eurosceptic countries leave.

So anyway, what are the pros and cons of creating the United States of Europe in your opinion?

Reply 1

PTMalewski

Original post by tomm0

So anyway, what are the pros and cons of creating the United States of Europe in your opinion?

Same as those generally connected with centralisation.

There is a national sentiment here however. If they push towards Federation, the result will be exactly the opposite to intended.

Reply 2

L i b

We throw around words like "federalism" and a "United States of Europe" quite a lot on here, but they are completely meaningless. The EU already exists as an essentially federal entity, with control over a restricted range of constitutionally defined competences. In these areas, it has legal primacy over the member-states. It is a federation.

I presume that people who use these terms mean taking on more of the traditional attributes of a sovereign state, but which ones? The EU already has a great many of these attributes anyway: there is not an institution like it in the world, and it pretty much means that in Europe the idea of state-sovereignty is a rather old fashioned concept already.

Reply 3

username1148663

Original post by tomm0

I don’t have a problem with a United States of Europe with the uk in it and im a brexiteer!

People may think that’s an oxymoron but it isn’t as it’s a different proposition to what the eu currently is.

Effectively it is creating a new country and if they had single rules like the USA does over its states laws then I would be fine with that as long as we didn’t start adding new states like the eu does before bringing all the existing states up to standard.

I’ll go even further I’d prefer a world government.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 4

username1799249

Original post by tomm0

I don't think that an entity of that size and diversity would survive for a long time. We're already seeing much smaller countries like the UK or Spain struggling to stop the independence movements.

Why do you say that? Are you suggesting The United States of America isn't diverse or large?

Small states wanting independence will soon discover that being independent with no economy isn't really worth it. Businesses are deserting Catalonia in droves.

It will be interesting to see what business does in the UK in the coming months. With no deal on the table yet, businesses are going to start rolling the dice.

Reply 5

So-Sarah

oh look, it's a George Osbore by Eeek clone!

Reply 6

tomm0

Original post by ByEeek

I am not suggesting that at all. I'm stating that the United States of Europe would be much more diverse than the USA. The simply differences between West and East coasts or North and South divides are nothing compared to differences between attitudes and cultures of Western and Eastern Europe, for example. Therefore, the federal Europe would be more likely to split than the USA.

Reply 7

CountBrandenburg

I think such a concept would be unstable, and with growing Eurosceptic views, I think many people will consider this an authoritarian move that removes their right to self determination

Reply 8

L i b

Original post by CountBrandenburg

I think such a concept would be unstable, and with growing Eurosceptic views, I think many people will consider this an authoritarian move that removes their right to self determination

The point of course is that centralisation is designed to have the effect of strengthening feeling towards the political entity. In many cases, greater European integration has been there to build that European identity - rather than to reflect it.

That's really how most states have been created. There isn't some pre-existing national consciousness that politics builds upon, but rather politics creates that sense of national consciousness.

Reply 9

icequeenTM

Original post by L i b

Spot on. I’ve been saying this all along, it is already a federation!

Reply 10

mojojojo101

I supported a more federated Europe when I was younger, on the condition it was a federation of micro-states. In that way you could have got all the benefits from things like Scottish and Catalan independence for example without those new countries risking financial and diplomatic ruin.

However, having grown politically I now see that was a foolish idea, mostly because Nation States are much like jealous children in that they never want to give up anything they think belongs to them. I also came to see beauracratic structures for what they unfortunately are, self-serving, who you put in charge of them or where they are based doesn' matter, they will ALWAYS **** over the working class.

Reply 11

fallen_acorns

if you took someone without a knowledge of history, and showed them a map that had the outlines of societal values and where they change on it.. and you already highlighted China, the USA, India, Australia, Russia, Canada etc. and then asked them to do the rest... what would happen?

I would guess that they would heavily group many European countries into blocks. Firstly to match the size and scale of existing countries, and secondly because there are a lot of cultural similarities within Europe.

Without a lot of thought - you could easily come up with 3-4 blocks.

Norther europe -e.g. Scandinavia could function as a single country.
Central to western Europe: France, UK, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Ireland, Austria, etc.
Southern/mediterianin europe: greece, itally, spain, croatia, cyprus
Eastern Europe - I am less knowledgeable on this area, so Im not sure if you'd put it all in one group, or subdivide into two.

But that's probably how I would personally approach it, were I designing a new Europe. It solves the scale/size problem of smaller individual nations, but it keeps some key regional and wealth based differences that should help things run smoothly. If each of the 4 zones has its own central government currency and bank, it would certainly help avoid the problem we have now where the poorer European countries are tied to the same currency as the richer nations. It also avoids some of the more extreme cultural clashes.

So 4 zones, each with their own government.. no central governmental organisation should exist between the zones.. just a council for meetings and negotiations, but not decision making.