9 ms·

A United States of Europe? Good Luck

22 points by akg_67 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
fsloth 11y 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.
- ajuc 11y 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.
  - danielam 11y 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.
- a_bonobo 11y 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 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 11y ago
    Holy Roman Empire started around 800AD.
    - danielam 11y ago
      As they say, the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman nor an Empire.
  - wolfgke 11y ago
    Mainly the war against the Napoleon empire united the German states in the 19th century and lead to the national movement.
    - pluma 11y ago
      It was a factor but not the entire reason. Pan-German sentiments were pre-existing.
  - 11y ago
- seren 11y 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 11y ago
    Same thing for Sweden, but I guess most modern countries are a result of unification of lesser city states/countries
    - fsloth 11y ago
      I suppose at the time of Sweden's unification it was more about subjugating ones political enemies on horseback rather than attempting to harmonize the existing processes of a huge number of modern polities. Yield! Kneel! Pay your taxes! - and then off to the next battle. They spoke the same language, it was basically happening in the context of feudal system which was from the point of view of the operations of government modular - basically the whole political system supported pretty well constant shifting of the ruling body - I kneel to you, they kneel to me, and I give you some grain and provide men in time of war. And ruling was pretty simple back then. Before 1600:s the function of government was basically the king. After they figured out there must be a better way to rule than riding ones bottom sore ruling and taxing about modern state functions began to emerge. I believe this was at the time of Gustavus Adolphus II in sweden (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavus_Adolphus_of_Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavus_Adolphus_of_Sweden).
  - eloycoto 11y 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-area 11y 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 11y ago
    China, India, and Italy are also great examples.
  - danielam 11y 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.
    - fsloth 11y ago
      "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?" I had quite an acidic comment originally about this first but then realized up-to-date political debate is out of context for HN. But yes, to me in light of history this is a huge thing - and is mostly ignored in daily discussion.
    - grey-area 11y ago
      That is an incredibly superficial treatment of the subject that not only fails to mention that these empire fell...Furthermore, it trivializes the substance and significance of national identity. All empires fall. National identity is an invention of the 19C, hardly an ever-enduring truth. I'd prefer to think the above comment was succinct, not superficial :) Re upending national identity, if you investigate the list of empires given, you'll see that in fact it is quite possible to meld separate states/cultures into one political state given enough time - for example India in the British empire was a mass of competing principates prior to British rule, and is now a functioning democracy encompassing a huge variety of cultures, languages, religions and on the scale of Europe what you might call nations. The German empire was a similar patchwork prior to unification in 1871. The Ottoman or Roman empires are also good examples of this. Your hostility to the EU project seems to make you want to declare it impossible, and perhaps it is flawed, but it's clearly not impossible, or even very unusual, to subsume existing states into something bigger. The morality or desirability of it is an entirely separate question.
- youngtaff 11y 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.
  - netrus 11y 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.
    - seren 11y ago
      Without all the technocratic apparatus of the European Union involved, the crisis would look a lot worse with countries closing their frontier, blaming their neighbor : it does already happen, but at least, we can talk about it in a kind of civilized manner, which is a much better way to find a solution. In my mind this is obvious a pan European answer is needed. You can not ask Italy and Greece to solve the crisis by themselves, when most refugee want to actually go other countries.
      - wolfgke 11y ago
        > You can not ask Italy and Greece to solve the crisis by themselves, when most refugee want to actually go other countries. If the refugees are persecuted so badly in their own countries (which is a condition for getting asylum), they should be happy for any sufficiently safe country that is willing to give them asylum.
- Oletros 11y ago
  > Historically, realms that have been patched together from previously autonomous bodies have not done too well (I would appreciate counter examples). Spain
  - rawTruthHurts 11y ago
    Is not doing too well.
    - Timmons 11y ago
      *At the moment
      - rawTruthHurts 11y ago
        Memories keep us alive, don't they?
    - pluma 11y ago
      England. The UK. France. Germany. The USA. The list of "[countries] patched together from previously autonomous bodies" happens to be an incredibly huge subset of countries that exist today.
      - rawTruthHurts 11y ago
        That's a good list of the remmants of dismembered entities, with the exception of the USA, which is relatively young.
        pluma 11y ago
        The USA is also a remnant of a dismembered entity (or rather composed of one). I can't think of any country that has remained exactly the same throughout history. Nearly every country out there is either an agglomeration of formerly independent entities or used to be part of a bigger entity at some point. Your categories are useless. Unless you're trying to define categories for countries which don't exist.
- tlocke 11y 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.
  - prodmerc 11y 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...
    - verbin217 11y ago
      I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm very pro-globalization. It's an engineering problem and that's the right solution. But I do fear this world order.
    - infimum 11y ago
      > Of course, they ignore the ongoing massive globalization and how it has improved their lives... I'm not quite sure it improved the life of the 13 year old indian sweatshop worker though...
      - prodmerc 11y ago
        Who would've otherwise been a 13 year old beggar? Or 6 year old corpse? Their own country's market sure doesn't look too good for job creation...
  - 11y ago
- arethuza 11y 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).
  - rawTruthHurts 11y ago
    Hm, I don't think "huge" applies to the UK.
    - Timmons 11y ago
      Population UK: 64.1 million Population US: 318.9 million So that is 1/5th the population of a near continental sized country. The UK may not be big but it is dense (Admittedly not as dense as some Asian countries).
nkuttler 11y 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.
- mrb 11y 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.
  - rorykoehler 11y ago
    As an Irish/German I fully agree with you.
- cm2187 11y 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.
  - dogma1138 11y 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.
cjsthompson 11y ago
It's depressing to read all the banal nonsense in the comments here. Maybe reading this can help : http://www.ditext.com/proudhon/federation/federation.html http://www.ditext.com/proudhon/federation/federation.html

22 points by akg_67 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

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.

ajuc 11y 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.
- danielam 11y 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.
a_bonobo 11y 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 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 11y ago
  Holy Roman Empire started around 800AD.
  - danielam 11y ago
    As they say, the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman nor an Empire.
- wolfgke 11y ago
  Mainly the war against the Napoleon empire united the German states in the 19th century and lead to the national movement.
  - pluma 11y ago
    It was a factor but not the entire reason. Pan-German sentiments were pre-existing.
- 11y ago
seren 11y 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 11y ago
  Same thing for Sweden, but I guess most modern countries are a result of unification of lesser city states/countries
  - fsloth 11y ago
    I suppose at the time of Sweden's unification it was more about subjugating ones political enemies on horseback rather than attempting to harmonize the existing processes of a huge number of modern polities. Yield! Kneel! Pay your taxes! - and then off to the next battle. They spoke the same language, it was basically happening in the context of feudal system which was from the point of view of the operations of government modular - basically the whole political system supported pretty well constant shifting of the ruling body - I kneel to you, they kneel to me, and I give you some grain and provide men in time of war. And ruling was pretty simple back then. Before 1600:s the function of government was basically the king. After they figured out there must be a better way to rule than riding ones bottom sore ruling and taxing about modern state functions began to emerge. I believe this was at the time of Gustavus Adolphus II in sweden (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavus_Adolphus_of_Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavus_Adolphus_of_Sweden).
- eloycoto 11y 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-area 11y 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 11y ago
  China, India, and Italy are also great examples.
- danielam 11y 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.
  - fsloth 11y ago
    "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?" I had quite an acidic comment originally about this first but then realized up-to-date political debate is out of context for HN. But yes, to me in light of history this is a huge thing - and is mostly ignored in daily discussion.
  - grey-area 11y ago
    That is an incredibly superficial treatment of the subject that not only fails to mention that these empire fell...Furthermore, it trivializes the substance and significance of national identity. All empires fall. National identity is an invention of the 19C, hardly an ever-enduring truth. I'd prefer to think the above comment was succinct, not superficial :) Re upending national identity, if you investigate the list of empires given, you'll see that in fact it is quite possible to meld separate states/cultures into one political state given enough time - for example India in the British empire was a mass of competing principates prior to British rule, and is now a functioning democracy encompassing a huge variety of cultures, languages, religions and on the scale of Europe what you might call nations. The German empire was a similar patchwork prior to unification in 1871. The Ottoman or Roman empires are also good examples of this. Your hostility to the EU project seems to make you want to declare it impossible, and perhaps it is flawed, but it's clearly not impossible, or even very unusual, to subsume existing states into something bigger. The morality or desirability of it is an entirely separate question.
youngtaff 11y 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.
- netrus 11y 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.
  - seren 11y ago
    Without all the technocratic apparatus of the European Union involved, the crisis would look a lot worse with countries closing their frontier, blaming their neighbor : it does already happen, but at least, we can talk about it in a kind of civilized manner, which is a much better way to find a solution. In my mind this is obvious a pan European answer is needed. You can not ask Italy and Greece to solve the crisis by themselves, when most refugee want to actually go other countries.
    - wolfgke 11y ago
      > You can not ask Italy and Greece to solve the crisis by themselves, when most refugee want to actually go other countries. If the refugees are persecuted so badly in their own countries (which is a condition for getting asylum), they should be happy for any sufficiently safe country that is willing to give them asylum.
Oletros 11y ago
> Historically, realms that have been patched together from previously autonomous bodies have not done too well (I would appreciate counter examples). Spain
- rawTruthHurts 11y ago
  Is not doing too well.
  - Timmons 11y ago
    *At the moment
    - rawTruthHurts 11y ago
      Memories keep us alive, don't they?
  - pluma 11y ago
    England. The UK. France. Germany. The USA. The list of "[countries] patched together from previously autonomous bodies" happens to be an incredibly huge subset of countries that exist today.
    - rawTruthHurts 11y ago
      That's a good list of the remmants of dismembered entities, with the exception of the USA, which is relatively young.
      - pluma 11y ago
        The USA is also a remnant of a dismembered entity (or rather composed of one). I can't think of any country that has remained exactly the same throughout history. Nearly every country out there is either an agglomeration of formerly independent entities or used to be part of a bigger entity at some point. Your categories are useless. Unless you're trying to define categories for countries which don't exist.
tlocke 11y 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.
- prodmerc 11y 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...
  - verbin217 11y ago
    I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm very pro-globalization. It's an engineering problem and that's the right solution. But I do fear this world order.
  - infimum 11y ago
    > Of course, they ignore the ongoing massive globalization and how it has improved their lives... I'm not quite sure it improved the life of the 13 year old indian sweatshop worker though...
    - prodmerc 11y ago
      Who would've otherwise been a 13 year old beggar? Or 6 year old corpse? Their own country's market sure doesn't look too good for job creation...
- 11y ago
arethuza 11y 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).
- rawTruthHurts 11y ago
  Hm, I don't think "huge" applies to the UK.
  - Timmons 11y ago
    Population UK: 64.1 million Population US: 318.9 million So that is 1/5th the population of a near continental sized country. The UK may not be big but it is dense (Admittedly not as dense as some Asian countries).

nkuttler 11y 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.

mrb 11y 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.
- rorykoehler 11y ago
  As an Irish/German I fully agree with you.
cm2187 11y 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.
- dogma1138 11y 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.

cjsthompson 11y ago

It's depressing to read all the banal nonsense in the comments here. Maybe reading this can help : http://www.ditext.com/proudhon/federation/federation.html http://www.ditext.com/proudhon/federation/federation.html