A United States of Europe? Good Luck

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-15/unpopular-rush-to-build-a-united-states-of-europe

by akg_67 • 11 years ago

22 88 11 years ago

fsloth6• 11 years ago

I have not yet met an analysis that would explain why a huge governmental body to politically rule the entire Europe would be a good thing. Historically, realms that have been patched together from previously autonomous bodies have not done too well (I would appreciate counter examples).

Most successful large systems grow organically and with time or are forced into a unified whole by a huge effort at control. And the effort needed seems to me to grow at exponentially as the total system size increases.

Trade agreements can govern the interaction between autonomous bodies - they affect the policies but are more of a service interface and a set of constraints than a complete operating system.

a_bonobo• 11 years ago

As a counter-example: Germany as a country has a very short history - "pan-germanism" was a movement to unify all German-speaking countries, which included quite a bit of Poland, Austria and Switzerland. There were 39 states in the first German Bund ~1870, there were way more states in the preceding Holy Roman Empire (that one included what's now the Netherlands, Belgium, parts of Italy etc.). These were merged into the Empire, which turned shortly into the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, West and East Germany, and is now the Bundesrepublik.

Culturally these parts were quite different, most often dominated by Prussia vs. the rest [1]. But Prussia has been forgotten by now, which makes me hopeful that you can have a large country with people who are thought to be "culturally incompatible". Some German-speaking areas that were included in the first German Bund aren't German speaking anymore since the Second World War. Sudeten-Germans and other German minorities were kicked out after Hitler lost.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-Germanism

[1] My favorite book about this is "Diary of a Man in Despair", it's written by a Prussian who pretended to be a Bavarian who keeps on criticizing Prussians

jkot• 11 years ago

Holy Roman Empire started around 800AD.

wolfgke3• 11 years ago

Mainly the war against the Napoleon empire united the German states in the 19th century and lead to the national movement.

pluma6• 11 years ago

Prussian who pretended to be a Bavarian who keeps on criticizing Prussians

Dreckspreissen.

The funny thing is that this rivalry with Prussia still exists, except over the centuries the term "Prussia" has become a generic name for all of Germany north of Bavaria.

danielam5• 11 years ago

You actually prove his point more than anything. The German Empire was very short lived in part because it attempted to impose a political order onto a variety of ethnicities. The policy of germanizing these groups, Kulturkampf and its associated so-called 19th century Ostsiedlung (of "Drang nach Osten" fame) went hand in hand with the imperial drive to assimilate and subjugate its members culturally and religiously. The resulting resentment contributed to WWI. Despite certain national undertones during WWII, the major cause for WWII was imperial in nature, i.e., the attempt at reestablishing the German Reich, this time across Europe, as well as the expansion of the Russian Empire in the form of the Soviet Union which likewise tried to eradicate conquered nations and ethnicities in order to create a Soviet people (what some sarcastically call Homo Sovieticus). They failed. The latter, which managed to live on for another 50 years after WWII, failed in part because the idea of the Soviet people as buckling under the seething pressure of national and ethnic difference and consciousness.

seren2• 11 years ago

Historically, realms that have been patched together from previously autonomous bodies have not done too well (I would appreciate counter examples).

At least Germany, Spain, Italy, France have evolved from a myriad of city states, duchy, great fief, that have been unified, conquered, inherited, etc to form a bigger central power.

European separatist movement are usually basing their claims on these previous historical divisions (Catalonia, Brittany, Scotland...)

BBlarat• 11 years ago

Same thing for Sweden, but I guess most modern countries are a result of unification of lesser city states/countries

eloycoto• 11 years ago

It's not only the historical divisions, it's about aptitude from governments to this historical countries.

- This historical countries have different languages. (Euskera, Galician, Catalonian) - This countries are different than other "Autonomous communities" in terms of primary sectors.

Sometimes the Spain government not accept some particular things that happens in this historic countries, plus we come from 39 years of dictatorial state where our languages were banned. Nowadays this historical countries are promoting these languages + spanish, but Spain government didn't accept that.

One of my grandfather got shot for speaking in Galician, another got political asylum in Netherlands after cross the Portuguese border, my family fight for our culture, I want to keep that. I'm spanish but I'm speaking different language, I have different habits, I don't want to be independent but I want that Spanish government try to understand that we are a bit different, only that..

Meanwhile Spain government keeps shot old historic regions and try to kill their culture, Spain will have a problem. Nowadays Catalunya problem it's huge for Spain, and Spain government didn't do anything about and this is too sad :-(

grey-area2• 11 years ago

Historically, realms that have been patched together from previously autonomous bodies have not done too well (I would appreciate counter examples).

The Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire, Byzantine Empire, British Empire and the USA spring to mind. All large states/empires are a patchwork of previously autonomous bodies, in fact most nation states are also formed in the same way, though of course they later usually manufacture tradition/history in an attempt to seem unique and indivisible.

khuey• 11 years ago

China, India, and Italy are also great examples.

danielam5• 11 years ago

That is an incredibly superficial treatment of the subject that not only fails to mention that these empire fell, but also some of the relevant reasons why. It also fails to distinguish between the formation of nations and the formation of empires and the processes by which they can and do occur. Furthermore, it trivializes the substance and significance of national identity. National identity is very fundamental and upending it in Europe today, and at the scale of a 28 nation bloc, is virtually impossible, especially by means of the mendacious tactics of would-be statesmen and crypto-imperialists.

Mind you, empires are driven by a dominant culture and group. The question then becomes: who would play (or is playing) that role in the EU? When you answer that question, the politics of the EU begin to present themselves in a different light.

ariwilson• 11 years ago

For the purposes of determining if a United States of Europe is viable, I think the US is not necessarily a great example. After all, it took two devastating wars (the Civil War and WW2) to truly centralize federal power / exhibit great power organization in the way it does today.

youngtaff• 11 years ago

Yeh, that's one of the key things - a United States of Europe is a goal driven by politicians and bureaucrats who are forever grabbing more power for themselves.

Some of goals - trade zone, free movement of people etc., may make sense but a European wide army?

Europe is a region of huge diversity, it doesn't need to be a single political entity.

netrus2• 11 years ago

German here. Could you imagine a Florida army going to war in Afghanistan, while California stays neutral, and Texas sends troops to Mexico? - Why not? People in Texas are quite different from people in California, they have different interests and beliefs. The driving force behind the United States of Europe is that (1) every single country is too small to be influential in the world (and we want to have influence in the world) and (2) that the process of joining forces has worked for many member states before (Germany, Italy, Spain, even Belgium ...) Everyone knows its hard, but hey, most new legislation is now the same in all EU member states, and it mostly works. The refugee situation is the strongest challenge of the Unification of Europe yet, but on the other hand, the objective differences between us never been smaller in the past two decades. The United States of Europe are not a must-have, of course, but to many it would be a nice-to-have.

pluma6• 11 years ago

but a European wide army?

I'm German. The stated purpose of the Bundeswehr (German armed forces) is to defend Germany. Historically this has been interpreted as "defend Germany within German borders", lately it has been extended to "defend German interests in remote places like Afghanistan".

The vast majority of deployments the German public is aware of happens either as part of or along side NATO and UN missions. I can't think of any situations where Germany sent troops without any support from other European countries. Nearly every news piece about German military responses to e.g. the Arab Spring goes out of its way to mention the attitude of other countries, especially in Europe but also NATO and the UN.

Yes, a United States of Europe is unlikely to include England (though I can see Scotland being a part of it if they eventually do secede -- unlike England, Scotland has very strong historical ties with Europe and France in particular). But it's a mistake to look at England as representative of general European sentiments.

It's not at all unheard of for political entities within a union not to maintain their own army. Germany was initially created as federation of independent states with their own armies, as was the USA. Even England (not to mention the UK) began as a loose collection of independent states.

Oh, and here's another thing about the German military: throughout the post-WW2 history of Germany there has been a recurring theme of politicians and political interest groups seeking to abolish our military permanently (after all, if it's purely for our defence, we're surrounded by allies these days and don't have any reason to fear invasions). The most frequent counter-argument is simply that we need the military to assist our allies -- note how this has nothing to do with self-defense.

Oletros4• 11 years ago

Historically, realms that have been patched together from previously autonomous bodies have not done too well (I would appreciate counter examples).

Spain

rawTruthHurts5• 11 years ago

Is not doing too well.

im3w1l3• 11 years ago

They've literally had guerillas trying to split it up. Is that the kind of EU we want?

ajuc• 11 years ago

Depends what you call patching together, and what you call organic growth.

If you count being annexed as "patching together" - all states were created that way at some point. Then they might have been annexed by bigger entities, and separated from them again, but originally there were no states - just tribes.

If you want political and not military patching - Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth worked pretty well for 2 centuries, but of course Poland and Lithuania were also created by annexing and fighting in the first place.

danielam5• 11 years ago

This. There is a very big difference between unifying tribes and unifying nations.

W.r.t. the Commonwealth, even then the Commonwealth fell apart for three major reasons, viz., the so-called Swedish Deluge, the Khmelnytsky Uprising and the abuse of the liberal political system by the nobility with foreign meddling playing a major role. The second was ethno-religious in nature and the third driven in part by conflicting interests. (Indeed, the Polish Enlightenment differed from the Enlightenment in the West precisely because it dealt with the problem of too much or misallocated freedom.) The dispersion of military might among private armies (in some cases the sizes of private armies of wealthy magnates rivaled the royal armies in size) coupled with conflicting interests prevented the Commonwealth from being able to mount a coherent and unified defense against Russian, Prussian and Austrian dismemberment, and ultimately destruction, of the state. And while it lasted, even though the Commonwealth was a vastly freer place that permitted the peaceful coexistence of many different ethnic groups and religions, it nonetheless was held together by a dominant group with a dominant ethos, viz., the Polish nobility.

In other words, empires suffer from tension when they impose their will on the constituting nations, but they also suffer from a lack of coherent and unified interests among its members. The EU suffers from both.

On the one hand, you have the federalist impulse wishing to beat member states into submission by asserting a "soft" German dominance over the continent against the wishes of its members. On the other hand, you have the same politicians possessed by this impulse maintaining that they respect the individuality and alleged sovereignty of each state. We respect cultural differences, but we completely ignore them when gerrymandering policies. All members are equally important, but our policies favor the interests of certain members over others and have in place a voting system that privileges might over collaboration. The migrant crisis undermines the Schengen Zone. The Greek crisis undermines the euro zone. Nord Stream undermines the idea of common energy policy. The Ukrainian crisis undermines the idea of common foreign policy. It's easy to wallow in shallow sentiments in the absence of crises, but it is precisely during crises that the substance of such unions is revealed. The truth is that the EU is creeping dangerously toward a point of no return. Instead of serving as a platform for nations to find common ground and collaborate for mutual benefit, it has contributed to the opposite through its incompetence, its arrogance and its Brummagem unity concealing the real political interests at play.

tlocke• 11 years ago

Historically, realms that have been patched together from previously autonomous bodies have not done too well (I would appreciate counter examples).

I'm writing from Bath in the UK where Edgar, the first king of England, was crowned in 973. This united the ancient kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia etc.

Thankfully we've become more democratic since then, but until the EU was founded in 1993, Europe was an anarchy of nations. The countries themselves were democratic, but the group of nations was an anarchy. Europe suffered the problems of anarchy (the rule of the strong rather than the rule of law) and had been at war in some form or other for a large part of its history. Now that we've got the EU, which is a democracy of nations, the threat of war has receded somewhat. In the future I hope that we'll see a democracy of the entire world, a world government.

prodmerc2• 11 years ago

You may be surprised, but most people fear a world government.

New World Order and all that bullshit.

Of course, they ignore the ongoing massive globalization and how it has improved their lives...

fsloth6• 11 years ago

You do realize your spiel could be used to market any of the conquests of the past centuries - unite under MY banner, and we shall have piece...

Britain is pretty swell, after a thousand years of dominating cultural hegemony. Although some scots may disagree. And some Irish perhaps. Not too many people speak the old tongues.

A typical dynamic in a large polity such as a nation or a corporation is that there will be a single culturally distinguishable leading elite class, and a) this elite will favor it's own (not maliciously, but because they are human and favor familiarity) and b) the people who do not actively recent the ruling elite will try to emulate them. So, in time, if the dominion can remain civil, it will develop an understanding and a common cultural framework.

Talking of civility - historically, britain has been unable to hold to lands that it could not hold under the force of violence. American colonies. India. South Africa.

People love their sovereignty (or, people yearn for political power and use sovereignty as their rallying cry). Anyhow - if the cultural hegemony cannot overwhelm a territory there will be a constant pressure to cede. I think this understanding of history is what drove many of the genocides of the past century - political will to rule, at any cost.

With this view of history uniting the earth under a single government would require either a single monoculture, or a dictatorial rule forcing a cultural homogenization over generations until the dissenting voices have diminished to insignificance.

Perhaps our beloved internet will function as a vehicle of such homogenization - it's not completely impossible.

Note: There was no large war in europe between the napoleonic wars and the first world war. Historically, europe has been quite pieceful in the past without a huge bureaucracy attempting to to formulate everything under it's legalistic framework.

I believe in western concept of human rights, and I do not believe in cultural relativism - oppression is oppression. But, a world government is a concept that is very problematic in our current state in history. I have no idea if this will change.

arethuza3• 11 years ago

What about the UK?

We have four components with varying levels of autonomy - Scotland arguably being the most "independent" as we have our legal system, education system and parliament here in Edinburgh.

As other poster note - Scotland and England are themselves the result of joining together once independent parts into units that last pretty well - Scotland goes back to the bit 9th century and some of the component parts of Scotland go back to the 6th century (though things get a bit vague by then).

rawTruthHurts5• 11 years ago

Hm, I don't think "huge" applies to the UK.

nkuttler• 11 years ago

Nobody I know wants United States of Europe. The European Union is completely undemocratic at it's core, our national leaders have made sure that the electorate has minimal powers and influence over their supranational policing. Sovereignty of the people conflicts with the sovereignty of nations.

cm21873• 11 years ago

It's only undemocratic because electors do not seem to care who they send to the EU. But MEP are elected, and the officials that are not elected are nominated by elected officials.

I think the only viable EU is a United States of Europe, in which the current countries disappear, and you only have a Federal state and what is currently regions in the current countries.

Whether a EU is desirable for the UK is another debate. The UK is one of the rare capitalist countries in Europe while pretty much all the other countries are social-democrat if not outright socialist countries, with the high unemployment and low growth associated.

dogma11386• 11 years ago

The European Parliament has no real power.

The legislative and executive powers of the union are held by the council of Europe which isn't an elected body.

megalodon• 11 years ago

"Elected", the turnout for the election 2014 was 42.54%. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_...

rorykoehler3• 11 years ago

I can't see the UK joining either, which as a non-British European is fine by me. They're only interested in how much profit they can squeeze out of every situation. This kind of insular individualism has no place in a Federal Europe.

arethuza3• 11 years ago

"The UK is one of the rare capitalist countries"

I would point at our avowedly socialist NHS and disagree with you there.

We're a mixed capitalist/socialist country like pretty much everyone else.

vidarh2• 11 years ago

This is exactly why some people want a United States of Europe: The EU institutions as they stand are giant hacks to try incrementally to forge a union out of sovereign nations, and the governance reflects this in that the governments involved do not have the authority to cede the sovereignty necessary to clean up the hacks without constitutional changes or referendums.

Properly done, a reformed EU where these hacks were undone and the requisite sovereignty ceded to the EU parliament to allow for a restructured EU would not need to leave the EU with more power, and could move much of what power the EU holds to the elected parliament and actually make the EU far more accountable to people, even if it involves ceding some sovereignty.

There has been a slow and steady move towards this, but there's only so much the member state governments can do via treaties without seeking explicit consent from their electorates, and there's very little public appetite for voting for anything that smells of a unified state, not least because the current EU bureaucracy rightfully is not very trust-inspiring. It's quite the Catch-22.

louhike• 11 years ago

And people are getting more nationalists because of the state of the economy. A more unifed EU would be interesting but a bigchallenge because of the diversity of languages/cultures. I would love to see it happen in my lifetime but I'm not really optimistic.

mrb• 11 years ago

Well let me be the first to disagree with you directly. As a French citizen, I WANT a United States of Europe. I strongly believe that a more politically and legally united Europe is likely to improve overall economic circumstances and quality of life of the average European. Yes this means my taxes being set by a European body, relatively richer countries (like mine) helping poorer countries, etc, but all these things are the right things to do.

rorykoehler3• 11 years ago

As an Irish/German I fully agree with you.

Kurtz79• 11 years ago

I do want the United States of Europe.

The alternative is the return of walls, nationalisms and wars, which has been the natural state of affairs in Europe for 99.9% of its history (100 years ago the Ministry of Defense was called Ministry of War for a reason).

The iteration we have at the moment is far from efficient, far from perfect, far from fair, but it's better than anything that has come before.

mrweasel• 11 years ago

The alternative is the return of walls, nationalisms and wars

No it's not. You can have an EU-lite, where we agree on some things, like free trade, joint projects (like EuroPol). Not having the United States of Europe won't result in war any more than the EU imposing a rule on an non-volunteer country will.

If anything the EU has shown that it doesn't work. We can't even agree on helping people fleeing a war zone. Nor are the Eurozone countries in agreement on how to handle financial policies.

It's not that the European countries should work together, or strive to have similar laws and rules, but it should be limited to issues like trade and the environment. Things that is beyond the scope of single nations.

kome• 11 years ago

I want a United States of Europe.

arethuza3• 11 years ago

"Nobody I know wants United States of Europe."

I'm a Scot and I do - and I'd rather see the UK part of it as well.

I want a democratic EU though - the current structures are undemocratic precisely because they have been designed to please national government rather than the people.

A United States of Europe? Good Luck

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