I wish this would happen, at least through long-term integraton.
Thanks, but no thanks.
Honestly?
Because you somehow have to convince 27 presidents to voluntarily stop being presidents.
I am very much pro-federation, so what I’m about to write isn’t my personal stance, but rather the reasons, as I understand them, why many people are against such a federation.
The problem is, countries would lose autonomy. For many countries, the dictates from Brussels already feel out of touch and poorly thought out. The EU leadership is seen as a bunch of unelected technocrats (and looking at Ursula, I can’t even say they’re entirely wrong), and the very idea of giving over more power to them is seen as abhorrent.
In short, people aren’t too keen on having the French and the Germans dictate their lives to an even greater degree.
Afaik there are many who dont even like EU as intitution in some countries nearing 50%, so one could be glad even this form of EU works.
Every country fought with every other on this map for last 1000 years and now you want them to stand under one flag?
I’m in the USA (unfortunately), and I suppose I’m just curious to know – why would Federal Europe not run into the same challenges that we are seeing at the moment?
It just feels so odd to see this post at the same time that some of us in the states are wondering what accidental balkanization could look like over here.
You would have to change the EU democracy first. Right now EU legislation has a big democratic deficit. Before we form a federation I’d like to have more of an actual say in the laws that rule us.
Do you envy US and Russia? Federation, no thank you
We’re too different in most ways.
Because European isn’t a national identity like French, German, Italian and so on. A European federation will happen if there is a European identity and that would have to be formed by some national romantic movement or something along those lines.
Also you can see how other nations in the world have formed from previously diverse groups and it usually is a more authoritarian and nationalist process, good luck getting EU leaders on board with that.
There’s some clear benefits it would allow, but it would most likely slowly eradicate the smaller cultures and languages, and only the voice of the big EU countries would realistically be heard. European countries are also so different from one another that already in the EU it is very hard to come up with one-size-fit-all solutions, so the even closer integration would probably be even more difficult.
The majority of people are in 3 countries (which would dictate everything). Culturally, a lot of the rest of the countries are very different and would be marginalised.
We’re still decades away from that. The amount of planning needed for seamlessly integrating all the bureaucracies, economies and militarys alone is staggering. It’d also require countries to surrender much of their autonomy to a single European government, which seems like a poor prospect considering we don’t even have a united European identity yet.
First lets get our countries all in order before we even start thinking about Federalisation. The Euro and the formation of a European Army are just minor steps on the massive stairway.
Because that would go against what eu stands for. Even thou it’s starting to become more and more like it.
I don’t know if creating a european federation is something the majority of the people in the EU want. I kinda doubt it is
What in the american dumb ass take is this? Do people still don’t realize Europe is not only not one country but is the most culturally non-homogeneous place on the planet? Europe for the whole our history was the place most torn apart by constant wars and stuff, non-stop, and only the consequences of the WW2 put a pause on it. Europe would sooner go up in flames than there would ever be a possibility of any kind of confederation. China and US will become one country sooner than Europe, wtf
Its never going to happen, europe its too diverse and independent for something like this
It’s not happening. We love our independence too much.
We have a liberal party in Austria that is openly in favour of this. They call it ‘The United States of Europe’ and put up big posters all over the country for the EU elections. The party received 10% of the vote.
Several reasons. Do you know what [comparative advantage](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage)is? It’s the e economic idea that certain regions are economically more or less productive for various reasons.
So somewhere like Spain is great for solar energy and tourism due to cheap land and the sun.
Switzerland is better for precision engineering because of their centuries in high quality artisanship etc.
This gets amplified in a state, so some areas get super rich and others lose out. States rectify this by distributing revenue to the “losers”. An example is the Red states in the US like Mississippi which gets the tax from somewhere like California.
For a super state to be credible and not collapse overnight these structures need to be established. Can you imagine telling voters in Germany or Finland that tomorrow morning 25% of their GDP is going to be funding these areas? Public spending as a percent of GDP varies from 20-60% across Europe. That’s how much of a gorilla the state is. For something like a real state that’s what you’re talking about. Suddenly tax revenues from Bavaria or Groneingen or Dublin will be paying the pensions social contributions Bulgarians, inner city French or even richer pensioners etc.
The EU institutionally speaking a percentage of spending of GDP is a gnat. It barely exists (yet). It’s power comes from enabling things like common initiatives or aiding common rules and standards.
Another example would be creating structures that can address the entire market. The EU is starting to do this but because it’s so politically explosive they do a halfway muddled solution. The ECB is a great example so unlikely the Federal Reserve which has an official mandate to consider job creation, the ECBs only mandate is inflation.
This was conceeded mostly by Germany since inflation was a reason for Weimar Germany’s collapse and is extremely politically sensitive for them. No nation wanted to give any power over any other economic powers to the ECB. That leaves wage surpression as the only way of rebalancing European productivity. This is starting to go out of the window. As mentioned in the Draghi report.
Ultimately the only way for an EU super state to not collapse over night is for them to resolve these vast internal contradictions and for a way to make it politically acceptable to hand over vast amounts of sovereignty and GDP to fund the “losers”, who are not losers but economic victims of integration.
Selling such a subtle and fine point to an electorate who can’t pay for grocery bills or who are worried about inflation is impossible.
You can’t do it democratically. China was pretty diverse but forced Mandarin down everyone’s throats and eroded their cultural diversity over a few generations. Voting doesn’t enable that, brute force does.
too much nationalism to make this happen – that is to make it happen while also calling it that. this is only feasible by making small steps to solve objective issues like differing market regulation and the security problem (single EU military).
I’m also concerned about rising nationalism if this keeps getting pushed like this. Most nations are in the EU because their sovereignty is respected with the current structure. Threaten to change this and the EU could crumble.
Democracy will remain brain-dead as long as social networks are exploited as a playground for state-level bad actors to influence people with polarizing fake news.
Have you seen how France and Germany treat CE/EE? Or even Spain, Italy and Greece? Yeah, I bet all those countries are so eager to have nothing more to say. And Germans wonder why there is no trust in the global South.
Federalisation won’t be completed this century. I can believe that it will progress and some countries may form unions themselves to bear its benefits while also making the eventual unification easier because you need to merge less governments.
Because it’s so deeply corrupt, start working on that, trow out all of those lobbyists an vote a civière anti corruption program, make it democratic and let the people vote
It is the only way the EU can work in the long term. If you think a collection of very different countries can work with the same currency without a Federal governement, Federal Debt, and Federal Fiscal budget, you are just delusional.
Because small countries like mine wouldn’t have a say and we would be mainly ruled by western european (french, germans etc)
We don’t want the same laws because our norms are so different. An example is how Sweden had basically no rules during covid and the rest of Europe had to shut down. It worked for sweden, because we already practice social distancing and being at home. But it would not have worked for, lets say france, because they kiss random people on the face 😉
Because muh sovereignty
Not going to happen. Russian assets in many countries are gonna scream against it and veto it.
Apart from this – in many countries people don’t how EU is working right now and that it interferes too much, what would happen if you’ve tried to govern them federally?
In theory? It can have some benefits sure.
In practice? We cannot even agree on the same traffic rules throughout the EU.
So we’ve been killing eachother for centuries to hold our independence and now we are supposed to give it up?
Hungary is our problem. But we should overcome it by literally making an inner Europe without them and other precarious countries
Well the answer is: people don’t want it. EU is a constant shit show. Would this solve it or any other problem? No. It would f**k up more things.
As a person living in small country I don’t want my democracy to go into hands of corrupt bureaucrats far away in some location I’ll never even visit.
All fine and dandy until Poles actually notice that that federation would contain more than twice as many Germans as Poles who would thus dominate them in public debate.
between germany who try to sabotage nuclear power around the eu cause its more efficient than their current systems of prod, austria blocking romania and bulgaria to just enter shengen, the eastern country just succking the usa off on military matter, ireland who has half its gdp comming from tax fraud in the rest of the eu… (and more but i wont do every country that will take too long) i doubt this is actually a good idea
so you want the top dogs of EU to give away their power and become equals to the lower class countries? Do you listen to yourself?
We would win every worldcup football.
I mean, Im for it but it’s better to start small and move towards a more united military first.
Do it. Blanda up!
Political will and demagogy.
Why would it benefit me? I’m a dude from Poland if you need more context.
My region in Croatia is in deep crap, and I know that absolutely nothing would change if we were to have a federate government. I just don’t care about foreign policy, IDGAF about the possible “strength” of the EU because I know that Brussels government would be even more out of touch than any Croatian government.
And also, European identity for me is just a joke. Union of nation states – amazing. Federation – hell no!
And that’s not just my stance. That’s the stance of the majority of people.
Why would sovereign countries give up their free will to a federative government? EU was formed for 2 reasons
1. to prevent wars between neighbors that are part of it 2. money. which is also why countries joined it.
How is them becoming a federation beneficial to them?
The EU hasn’t proven itself yet tbh, and also nationalists (like brexiteers) think their country will lose its indetity. As an immigrant I’d love to see an European Federation but I understand the people who don’t.
47 comments
I wish this would happen, at least through long-term integraton.
Thanks, but no thanks.
Honestly?
Because you somehow have to convince 27 presidents to voluntarily stop being presidents.
I am very much pro-federation, so what I’m about to write isn’t my personal stance, but rather the reasons, as I understand them, why many people are against such a federation.
The problem is, countries would lose autonomy. For many countries, the dictates from Brussels already feel out of touch and poorly thought out. The EU leadership is seen as a bunch of unelected technocrats (and looking at Ursula, I can’t even say they’re entirely wrong), and the very idea of giving over more power to them is seen as abhorrent.
In short, people aren’t too keen on having the French and the Germans dictate their lives to an even greater degree.
Afaik there are many who dont even like EU as intitution in some countries nearing 50%, so one could be glad even this form of EU works.
Every country fought with every other on this map for last 1000 years and now you want them to stand under one flag?
I’m in the USA (unfortunately), and I suppose I’m just curious to know – why would Federal Europe not run into the same challenges that we are seeing at the moment?
It just feels so odd to see this post at the same time that some of us in the states are wondering what accidental balkanization could look like over here.
You would have to change the EU democracy first. Right now EU legislation has a big democratic deficit. Before we form a federation I’d like to have more of an actual say in the laws that rule us.
Do you envy US and Russia? Federation, no thank you
We’re too different in most ways.
Because European isn’t a national identity like French, German, Italian and so on. A European federation will happen if there is a European identity and that would have to be formed by some national romantic movement or something along those lines.
Also you can see how other nations in the world have formed from previously diverse groups and it usually is a more authoritarian and nationalist process, good luck getting EU leaders on board with that.
There’s some clear benefits it would allow, but it would most likely slowly eradicate the smaller cultures and languages, and only the voice of the big EU countries would realistically be heard. European countries are also so different from one another that already in the EU it is very hard to come up with one-size-fit-all solutions, so the even closer integration would probably be even more difficult.
The majority of people are in 3 countries (which would dictate everything). Culturally, a lot of the rest of the countries are very different and would be marginalised.
We’re still decades away from that. The amount of planning needed for seamlessly integrating all the bureaucracies, economies and militarys alone is staggering. It’d also require countries to surrender much of their autonomy to a single European government, which seems like a poor prospect considering we don’t even have a united European identity yet.
First lets get our countries all in order before we even start thinking about Federalisation. The Euro and the formation of a European Army are just minor steps on the massive stairway.
Because that would go against what eu stands for. Even thou it’s starting to become more and more like it.
I don’t know if creating a european federation is something the majority of the people in the EU want. I kinda doubt it is
What in the american dumb ass take is this?
Do people still don’t realize Europe is not only not one country but is the most culturally non-homogeneous place on the planet? Europe for the whole our history was the place most torn apart by constant wars and stuff, non-stop, and only the consequences of the WW2 put a pause on it. Europe would sooner go up in flames than there would ever be a possibility of any kind of confederation. China and US will become one country sooner than Europe, wtf
Its never going to happen, europe its too diverse and independent for something like this
It’s not happening. We love our independence too much.
We have a liberal party in Austria that is openly in favour of this. They call it ‘The United States of Europe’ and put up big posters all over the country for the EU elections. The party received 10% of the vote.
Several reasons. Do you know what [comparative advantage](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage)is? It’s the e economic idea that certain regions are economically more or less productive for various reasons.
So somewhere like Spain is great for solar energy and tourism due to cheap land and the sun.
Switzerland is better for precision engineering because of their centuries in high quality artisanship etc.
This gets amplified in a state, so some areas get super rich and others lose out. States rectify this by distributing revenue to the “losers”. An example is the Red states in the US like Mississippi which gets the tax from somewhere like California.
For a super state to be credible and not collapse overnight these structures need to be established. Can you imagine telling voters in Germany or Finland that tomorrow morning 25% of their GDP is going to be funding these areas? Public spending as a percent of GDP varies from 20-60% across Europe. That’s how much of a gorilla the state is. For something like a real state that’s what you’re talking about. Suddenly tax revenues from Bavaria or Groneingen or Dublin will be paying the pensions social contributions Bulgarians, inner city French or even richer pensioners etc.
The EU institutionally speaking a percentage of spending of GDP is a gnat. It barely exists (yet). It’s power comes from enabling things like common initiatives or aiding common rules and standards.
Another example would be creating structures that can address the entire market. The EU is starting to do this but because it’s so politically explosive they do a halfway muddled solution. The ECB is a great example so unlikely the Federal Reserve which has an official mandate to consider job creation, the ECBs only mandate is inflation.
This was conceeded mostly by Germany since inflation was a reason for Weimar Germany’s collapse and is extremely politically sensitive for them. No nation wanted to give any power over any other economic powers to the ECB. That leaves wage surpression as the only way of rebalancing European productivity. This is starting to go out of the window. As mentioned in the Draghi report.
Ultimately the only way for an EU super state to not collapse over night is for them to resolve these vast internal contradictions and for a way to make it politically acceptable to hand over vast amounts of sovereignty and GDP to fund the “losers”, who are not losers but economic victims of integration.
Selling such a subtle and fine point to an electorate who can’t pay for grocery bills or who are worried about inflation is impossible.
You can’t do it democratically. China was pretty diverse but forced Mandarin down everyone’s throats and eroded their cultural diversity over a few generations. Voting doesn’t enable that, brute force does.
too much nationalism to make this happen – that is to make it happen while also calling it that. this is only feasible by making small steps to solve objective issues like differing market regulation and the security problem (single EU military).
I’m also concerned about rising nationalism if this keeps getting pushed like this. Most nations are in the EU because their sovereignty is respected with the current structure. Threaten to change this and the EU could crumble.
Democracy will remain brain-dead as long as social networks are exploited as a playground for state-level bad actors to influence people with polarizing fake news.
Have you seen how France and Germany treat CE/EE? Or even Spain, Italy and Greece? Yeah, I bet all those countries are so eager to have nothing more to say. And Germans wonder why there is no trust in the global South.
Federalisation won’t be completed this century. I can believe that it will progress and some countries may form unions themselves to bear its benefits while also making the eventual unification easier because you need to merge less governments.
Because it’s so deeply corrupt, start working on that, trow out all of those lobbyists an vote a civière anti corruption program, make it democratic and let the people vote
It is the only way the EU can work in the long term. If you think a collection of very different countries can work with the same currency without a Federal governement, Federal Debt, and Federal Fiscal budget, you are just delusional.
Because small countries like mine wouldn’t have a say and we would be mainly ruled by western european (french, germans etc)
We don’t want the same laws because our norms are so different. An example is how Sweden had basically no rules during covid and the rest of Europe had to shut down. It worked for sweden, because we already practice social distancing and being at home. But it would not have worked for, lets say france, because they kiss random people on the face 😉
Because muh sovereignty
Not going to happen. Russian assets in many countries are gonna scream against it and veto it.
Apart from this – in many countries people don’t how EU is working right now and that it interferes too much, what would happen if you’ve tried to govern them federally?
In theory? It can have some benefits sure.
In practice? We cannot even agree on the same traffic rules throughout the EU.
So we’ve been killing eachother for centuries to hold our independence and now we are supposed to give it up?
Hungary is our problem. But we should overcome it by literally making an inner Europe without them and other precarious countries
Well the answer is: people don’t want it. EU is a constant shit show. Would this solve it or any other problem? No. It would f**k up more things.
As a person living in small country I don’t want my democracy to go into hands of corrupt bureaucrats far away in some location I’ll never even visit.
All fine and dandy until Poles actually notice that that federation would contain more than twice as many Germans as Poles who would thus dominate them in public debate.
between germany who try to sabotage nuclear power around the eu cause its more efficient than their current systems of prod, austria blocking romania and bulgaria to just enter shengen, the eastern country just succking the usa off on military matter, ireland who has half its gdp comming from tax fraud in the rest of the eu… (and more but i wont do every country that will take too long) i doubt this is actually a good idea
so you want the top dogs of EU to give away their power and become equals to the lower class countries?
Do you listen to yourself?
We would win every worldcup football.
I mean, Im for it but it’s better to start small and move towards a more united military first.
Do it. Blanda up!
Political will and demagogy.
Why would it benefit me? I’m a dude from Poland if you need more context.
My region in Croatia is in deep crap, and I know that absolutely nothing would change if we were to have a federate government. I just don’t care about foreign policy, IDGAF about the possible “strength” of the EU because I know that Brussels government would be even more out of touch than any Croatian government.
And also, European identity for me is just a joke. Union of nation states – amazing. Federation – hell no!
And that’s not just my stance. That’s the stance of the majority of people.
Why would sovereign countries give up their free will to a federative government?
EU was formed for 2 reasons
1. to prevent wars between neighbors that are part of it
2. money. which is also why countries joined it.
How is them becoming a federation beneficial to them?
The EU hasn’t proven itself yet tbh, and also nationalists (like brexiteers) think their country will lose its indetity. As an immigrant I’d love to see an European Federation but I understand the people who don’t.
Comments are closed.