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A United States of Europe? Good Luck

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Re: A United States of Europe? Good Luck

#11

Post by cm2187 »

nkuttler wrote: post #10

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.

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.

Re: A United States of Europe? Good Luck

#12

Post by netrus »

youngtaff wrote: post #8
fsloth wrote: post #3

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 th…

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.

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.

Re: A United States of Europe? Good Luck

#13

Post by dogma1138 »

cm2187 wrote: post #11
nkuttler wrote: post #10

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.

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 de…

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.

Re: A United States of Europe? Good Luck

#14

Post by ajuc »

fsloth wrote: post #3

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 th…

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.

Re: A United States of Europe? Good Luck

#15

Post by vidarh »

nkuttler wrote: post #10

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.

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.

Re: A United States of Europe? Good Luck

#16

Post by tlocke »

fsloth wrote: post #3

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 th…

> 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.

Re: A United States of Europe? Good Luck

#17

Post by seren »

netrus wrote: post #12
youngtaff wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 i…

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.

Re: A United States of Europe? Good Luck

#18

Post by hessenwolf »

netrus wrote: post #12
youngtaff wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 i…

Which makes it such a dreadful pity that die Mutti chose to go unilateral (whether she meant the broad invite or not, it was understood that way). The trick to having great power is not using it, until you really need it. She really shat the bed on this, and we will see the repercussions.

In the space of two weeks, many of us have gone from lifelong EU supporters to anti-Schengen. I'm upset.

Re: A United States of Europe? Good Luck

#19

Post by megalodon »

cm2187 wrote: post #11
nkuttler wrote: post #10

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.

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 de…

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

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

Re: A United States of Europe? Good Luck

#20

Post by vidarh »

dogma1138 wrote: post #13
cm2187 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 de…

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.

The very reason for his is that the national governments of the member states don't have the authority to cede much power to the EU Parliament.

Basically there are two ways of making the EU more democratic: Weakening it, or for the citizens of the member nations to explicitly allow their government to cede some degree of sovereignty to the EU Parliament to reduce the need for institutions like the Council by letting the EU Parliament subsume many of the duties.

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