The United States of Europe - Federal Europe, demanded by common sense

Hello Europeans,



Are you a university graduate looking for a decent job but can't find one? You and your friends are obviously a tiny part of a universal phenomenon within the First World. In fact almost everyone else is like you. Under the current system, getting a good job is much more a matter of chance than it is of skill and professional competence. A certain fact that some of the European leaders have recently pointed at openly is that the decision to take the EU to the last level and create a Federation out of its current members (or most of them) and later the rest of the European nations would put an instantaneous end to the economic crisis in Europe followed possibly by the world, as if at the switch of a button. Indeed it would solve close to all problems we can think of in relation to the crisis, at least within the boundaries of the Federation. A change that would propel those states certainly more than just a few decades into the future. It could set the conditions for a highly advanced form of society, unlike anything seen before. After all, what kind of highly civilized/tolerant societies are we here in Europe if we can't even open to the idea to accept a bind with those similar to us in economic and political terms who have evolved through a tightly common history next by, who now are struggling on a prolonged basis with identical problems and who are fighting the very same cause yet totally separately from us? Why should a formidable forces like Europe disperse their common strength by fighting individually? Of course lots of replies would burst saying it's centuries of separate traditions and the history of some countries which goes back almost 2 millenniums. The big question is: What's history got to do with anything? We don't live for the history we live for the future. We organize ourselves, the society for the future and also very much for the present.

This idea is not new at all. It has been proposed and called upon since the Renaissance. Of course the main obstacles standing in front of the creation of the Federation are some Europeans' incapacity to accept change, to accept new as a value. That can only come from a deeply implanted sense of national identity and national pride which is, a positive characteristic in itself. However in some cases some Europeans have reached a level where it has become like genetic. If this sense develops into an instinct that is detrimental for everyone as it causes the person to be automatic in the reaction to the idea before reason is employed or before it is never employed. In other words, the picture of the self as an absolutely unique entity, a projection of some past glorious events of dominance and world power of their history make them too wrapped around some local 'laws of physics'. And when you become one with your surrounding landscape you are the same thing as your 'laws of physics' and you can not perceive effects and phenomena outside of them because your eyes are made by them. If perceived at all, a new, more universal and more broadly applicable 'set of laws of physics' is rejected by default by the most fundamentally established postulates of the first.

The above is a great reason why the federalist European leaders and EU officials think they can't move more decisively towards the Federation. What they do not realize is that there is no reason to interfere with the euroskeptics' desire of purity of their sovereignty. Those states should simply be given the option to leave the EU as they already tend to. After all this is what progress and a Federation is all about: flexibility and similarity in intentions and directions. If one state member is reluctant to journey with the others and finish going in the direction it initially accepted to start going then this state has no reason to be a member anymore.

The world keeps increasing the speed at which it changes, at which the population grows and at which people consume and change their product requirements and general way of living. There is little time and reason to keep remembering the nobleness of the Countess of X in the 14th century and her heroic fight to obtain freedom/independence for the country. What's so special about that? So did the tiny forms of life in early earth history fight for survival. Why nobody commemorates them? The fight for survival of a kingdom or any other political entity is at a fundamental level no different than the lions fighting to keep their territory from other packs because they would otherwise lose their preying grounds and starve. Evolution has taught all beings to fight for their survival. Fighting at a more complex level as a human being, organized with others around you into a kingdom with an army has no special merit because that's how it was determined by nature. Lions and wolves have quite big, hierarchically organized packs as well. Humans defend, just like the lions, because they got no other choice. And in the case they win and develop, they think it's such a big deal. But there always has to be a winner if not here then there and if not there then over there. Back then the population of Europe was so scarce (the entire world had less than 500 million) compared to the current 7 billion. Back then people and society worked in an entirely different manner than today.

At the present moment merging into the Federation, readapting at continental level and general transformations is what assures regeneration and continuity for the human beings of this continent. What is for sure is that the unprecedented has made all the history we know since we started recording it. The difference is that we never learned to want to trigger it in a controlled way (except for the communists but here we are talking about the EU Constitution a bit edited and with a few new amendments added -president, government etc) and always tried to keep it the old way until a glass of some sorts filled full and spilled over many others with dire consequences as opposed to a controlled shift in a definite direction. What seems preposterous might actually be part of a more natural course of events. Starting from the basic level at which things in nature, in plants and animals or out into space work to different complex structures functioning within our social systems (like corporations that are eyes and ears to anticipate their customers' needs) we realize that everything is subject to a constant change and at some point it reaches a stage where it has to, in order to maintain a healthy existence or even exist at all, transform, readapt, in respect to the present transformations around. In more crude terms the way Europe is organized now literally trades the jobs for the continued ability to maintain the pride associated with local culture. I have personally come across some cases in Western Europe of jobless people on the verge of starvation who automatically feel the above mentioned pride in themselves as strong as anyone else and think everything around is roses and can't get any better because it's already perfect, the ultimate form of society and liberty, as evolved as society can get. I think you would agree with me that this kind of thinking can only stall social, personal evolution/responsibility. The people's flawed ideas of what continuity, safety, order, harmony has to be like stand in the way of their own progress.

But why would this change threaten cultural integrity at all? A culture after all is something strong and that's why it never died over the centuries. In many technical aspects we can see, a purely technical example, Germany and France as one country. The same economical decisions and plans are discussed and applied by leaders of both in both countries at once. Each one moves in respect the the other's move. Whenever a new hurdle comes for the EU economy they tick in close respect to each other and the two state leaders meet as if deciding what actions need to be taken in 1 state than in 2. They have the same currency, anyone from both can live, be professionally active, open a business or an organization in one with the same freedom as in the other and without a phone or GPS there's no way of telling when you have crossed the border from one to the other and yet Germans are still Germans and Frenchmen are nothing else than Frenchmen, their specifics are without question either German or French and there is no sign of a cultural mix whatsoever. If it was to happen, more than ever it would've happened right now. The skeptics would say that the model of the USA applied to the EU can not work because the US states were all the same, started at the same time, from scratch and all evolved in close relation at the same pace and had a common identity while the European countries have evolved so differently and separately and at a hardly synchronized pace. Well it's the other way around. It's the USA that had more trouble forming than will the USE have. Consider their war with the British, the bloody Civil War and the social insecurity of the Western regions in the earlier days. But that's the least we're concerned with for our contemporary argument. It is the other way around in that the EU members, all one next to the other, with a common history, are each a fine result of independent accumulation of social knowledge. Their already 2000 year history of social experimentation which is so super dense for every country makes a common European consciousness that most Europeans are not aware of directly yet it is so touchable for everyone. This fact would act not as a barrier but as an analgesic to fuse together and remodel the occasional more significant differences, unlike the USA that had to learn through trial and error what is and what is not good for it and everything it knows. Europeans know so much about each other that there is nothing that one can not predict the other will want or need.

 

The United States is a federation and still has plenty of problems, including terrible unemployment, and many more social problems than most European countries I might add — although this no doubt has more to do with the higher level of 'diversity' and immigration.

No, I would strongly oppose the European Union from becoming a federation for one key reason: immigration. Do you have any idea what would happen if the "free movement of people" was allowed? Perhaps I am just an idealistic nostalgist, but I would prefer the unique cultural and ethnic character of Europe to be preserved as much as practically possible.

There are other reasons to prefer separate sovereignty as well. We have only to look at many of the EU regulations already to see that an overcentralised government is not efficient in many ways. For example, the increasing gun restrictions may be desirable in certain countries, but unwanted and less practical in Finland. Yet when there is a centralised government, there is a tendancy for the same regulations to be imposed on all.

My objections to your proposed European Federation would be greatly lessened if there could be three provisions. First, each nation would still maintain it's own independant immigration policy. Second, each nation would be free to suceed from the federation at will. And third, if a way could be found to prevent the centralised european agencies from becoming entrenched with politically biased people trying to push a social and political agenda from positions that were meant to be politically neutral.

 

I don't want Brussels to make decisions for me .
A union with Anglosaxons and Germanics is insulting my Greekness .

 

Check this out... another xenophobia driven thinker. By the way have you even read all my post or just the first lines?

Again... have you read anything at all in my post or just the title? There is a content too... Your answer to this question is already answered in paragraph 6 (the last one). And by the way an idealist by definition is not a preserver of the current but someone willing to try the never tried before.

Exactly. That's why we need one. So that there would be no inefficiency in applying them.

The idea of local issues is rather an illusion today. So is the idea of small or big issues that can be better addressed through local or central authority. Death is not small or big...death of the self-respect and motivation of young people across Europe that happen to be jobless or inadequately employed by the tens of millions. They are from diferent countries yet they are one mass with one problem. They are one number that defines the identity of the entire Europe today. Not caring about them in the modern tolerating/ caring/altruistic European society as we call it is ignorance from those highly educated who on a continent like Europe have their positions secured and are made not feel the crisis. The majority is not them and not considering the situation of the majority is exactly middle age selfish thinking. Everyone needs to have a job in Belgium in order to eat in the same way one needs to in Italy or Spain. Today everything that is, be it as you call it local issue somewhere, is a local issue everywhere and any real, small or big long time concerning problem is, a small or big problem everywhere. One apparently local problem somewhere may actually have been triggered by the desperate situation in Europe. The crisis is actually a surface, superficial cause of the more fundamental problems lurking deep within some of European mentality and that is the outdated old ways that have become putrid but are still believed to be the red roses of yesterday by some, as opposed to some fresh updating to the globalized Europe, which became globalized like the rest of the world in only the last 15 years or so. Local issues is a funny thing to mention these years. WHat problems has one that the other in Europe doesn't? What is needed is a central kind of continental political and economical fan that would ventilate through all corners of Europe. An apparently local problem has way more chance of being removed decisively, for good, if dealt from far away in one sweeping move that deals with many other problems simultaneously and does not differentiate them that much as opposed to some fine local adjustment. When there is a big central authority over a large territory like in America, a local issue feels small and unmotivated to arise again and would have no choice but to give in to the continental law tides. Remember that the states of the United States have been added in sequences over 300 hundred years, the last ones to be added were in 1959 and the last major series of adherents being in 1912. How they dealt with the local issues of countries there that had time to develop their own specific encyclopedia of local issues that they must have thought were so important and whether the central authority dealt with them fairly and whether with awareness, knowledge of what was going on there doesn't even matter. What matters if that the US was and still is the world's strongest economy and that up until the recent years had some of the highest standards of life with no real unemployment.

What are you talking about everyone within the EU is already free to go work anywhere.

Since long ago, with the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 it became obvious that this is the course that the EU sets itself onto. Whoever disagreed with it was and still is free to leave the EU. A nation like an individual should know what it wants and so does Angela Merkel and Germany. I mean you can't stand in the doorway with one foot in and one foot out, enjoying all the benefits that house has to offer from the entrance without entering, without involvement, without having a contribution to the core goal, to the reason that entire structure is standing up.

 

You have not explained exactly why you believe centralisation of the government would improve the economy.
The formation of the Euro, although making trade easier, failed to bring many of the promised benefits or real economic growth.

 

In theory. In practice it is more complicated, which is why more people have not done so already.
Generally it takes very high push and pull factors to motivate people to take the trouble of moving. That is why it is such a mistake to open to other countries with much lower standards of living, it would result in huge migrations of people, with accompanying social and economic problems (unemployment and unaffordable housing).

Even as bad as things are in Spain, it has still not resulted in all the Spanish flooding into the rest of Europe to permanently live.
But things would be completely different if it was opened up to Somalia or Pakistan. As bad as it is in Spain and Greece, which we constantly hear about all the time in the media, it is so much more unimaginably worse in Pakistan and Somalia.

 

A freshly formed USE without Greece included would cancel Greekness as a term you can say any other way than in the abstract way.

 

Did it ever occur to you that different nations of people might not want to be under the same government together?
Each nation of people tends to have much in common (language, culture, shared history, economy) and subjecting one group to the decissions of another will create conflict.

If you do not believe me, just look at all the racial tension in the United States, or the ethnic conflicts/resentment in Eastern Europe. It is obvious just from reading this forum. High standards of living and expanding job opportunities (such as those in Western Europe right now) cover up ethnic/social tensions, but as soon as things go bad the underlying problems bubble to the surface again.

 

Why would someone take seriously a European federation after the failure (or slow motion failure) of the Euro?

 

The Euro is failing because of irresponsible governments which lacked forsight on the economic consequences of getting themselves into so much debt.
Let's hope Europe learns from its lesson.

 

LOL... ...

CUTTING COSTS OF EUROPE AND STILL HAVING THE SAME, ACTUALLY MORE AT THEIR DISPOSAL...ALL EUROPEANS:

One taxation system... In some EU countries some multimillionaires would no longer pay only a 6% tax.

One army... Armies are most expensive to have and supply. The Federation would reorganize its new army economically. So former less developed EU sovereign members wouldn't struggle to keep up with the latest military technology and would only contribute with their best they've done so far, that meets the standards of the newly formed federation or with nothing at all. The money they would have spent in that 'keep up to date' or their entire fund that used to go on that struggle would be left for all Europeans to distribute in wise ways. It's a matter of logistics and not having to play with these expensive toys by yourself as 1 country.

One Embassy... Embassies are expensive too. Think of the diplomatic limos and the endless diplomatic parties and meetings where they have such fancy treats, often with no results for either side's interests and also the gigantic diplomatic salaries and other expensive benefits. There are 196 countries in the world ... and about 50 countries in Europe... Multiply the expenses EACH of the 50 does with MOST of these 198 in order to maintain, often rather unfruitful diplomatic relations. Again a HUGE COST REDUCED through the simple paperwork of calling a continent of strong and capable people a Federation. What are nations after all? They are borderlines recognized on each one of them's papers. What they are as a cultural identity that brought them to where they are to be able to be proud of their identity today is never gonna die because has nothing to do with this. We no longer are in medieval times when having a culture wiped out was a risk. If Europeans would only leave prejudices and preconceptions behind and want to accept that 1+1 is 2 and that together we are stronger things would change the world as we know it. Many economists disagree on how we can get out of the economical crisis the old-fashioned ways. However all agree as one that the EU seen as one political entity is by far the strongest economy in the world.

The above list as you may agree can be extended to almost any form of institutional and non-institutional way of organizing our current European social structures.

 

With or without the Federation, the number of jobs available is not going to make more Europeans move across Europe than they are now because it won't support more than it can and they would just not stay there.

The Federation is a guarantee of things not getting any worse even in the worst case scenario...

And I didn't say anything about Somali or Pakistani, nor about opening to the entire World. I'm only talking about Europeans. I don't know where you get these from.

 

I do because the Euro is only an early stage of the Federation. It seems to be not working because we haven't moved farther and been too reluctant. In raw terms you have the fancy 1400 Horse Power car engine laying in the grass but it doesn't move by itself even though it's on... It vibrates pointlessly. You need to have the car...and mount it on it.

 

Before the Federation is made all states should simply be given the option to leave the EU as some already tend to. After all this is what progress and a Federation is all about: flexibility and similarity in intentions and directions. If one EU member state is reluctant to journey with the others and finish going in the direction it initially accepted to start going then this state has no reason to be a member anymore. Since long ago, with the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 it became obvious that this is the course that the EU sets itself onto. Whoever disagreed with it was and still is free to leave the EU. A nation like an individual should know what it wants and so does Angela Merkel and Germany. I mean you can't stand in the doorway with one foot in and one foot out, enjoying all the benefits that house has to offer from the entrance without entering, without involvement, without having a contribution to the core goal, to the reason that entire structure is standing up.

Maybe copy-pastes of the same reply make things stick better to you.

You are making a severe confusion here. European nations are not ethnic groups and speaking of racial tensions, they are present anywhere regardless of the economy or the political regime. A Federation will actually help the minorities integrate, express their identity and increase their job chances.

 

You still have not explained why you believe a federation would improve the economy. More "cooperation" likely just means more bailouts, something I completely disagree with. The healthiest thing for the economy is to allow speculative investments to fail. If a bank collapse shakes investor confidence, that is a good thing because investors should be more careful where they put their money. Besides, all this bailout money has to come from somewhere, and excessive taxation can be a disincentive to economic exchange.

 

The Euro is failing because it's creators never anticipated that individual nations would continue to conduct their fiscal policies in the same manner that they always had, and that there would never be another financial crisis, ever. I imagine the Federation dreamers are probably the same folks who screwed up the Euro.

 

You actually are talking by yourself on this thread, in parallel with my points I might say. You engage with one word I say instead of an idea.

The term bailout does not apply within a federation. So does the term cooperation. You can't cooperate with yourself.
National armies and Embassies can't be even remotely called speculative investment...They are the very thing you need in order to not be wearing leaves, fight with bones or stones and be organized in a tribe.

But even if nothing was done about whatever problem you talk about with speculative investments and stuff, Europe as a Federation would still cut trillions of Euro of expenses that take place now and would get to keep the money...that is my point.

 

Go read some history nothing cancels Greekness , we will still be here long after all of you have gone.


Concerning the Union and as it works , exposing small countries like Portugal, Hungary and Greece that produce nothing into open EU market was wrong and the leadership was too short-sighted to see it coming. You can not make your living by exporting apples and importing everything else, sooner or later you will get cash dry and start loaning sinking into debt.
Cutting costs doesn't work and it is proven , go look in UK's and France's industrial output and economic growth , they are both in the reds.

Do you have any idea who they work in Brussels ? Go take a look on how they constructed the infamous "support mechanism" the first step was to secure global immunity for those operating it , if this doesn't ring a bell then what what will do ?

 

Are you as young as your avatar? Don't you remember when the Euro was failing before and it came back. Actually isn't the Euro still stronger than the US dollar. What was the exchange rate when the Euro was launched?

The simplest argument is that the Euro is a failure simply because Europe is not a Federation. US States going bankrupt do not threaten the dollar. Why do Americans delude themselves about Europe. German is still a powerhouse of a manufacturing economy. London is still the equal of New York in terms of Finance. Americans should not believe their own anti-European propaganda about "socialist Europe". The EU is still the equal of the USA and is very powerful. Both blocs are in long term decline.

The funniest thing is the Greek nationalist here. Greece benefits from being a member of the Euro but because it elects a corrupt and lying government, and because tax evasion is deemed morally acceptable in Greece, it is heading for bankruptcy. If it has been part of a Federation then this could not have happened (California going bust did not shake the US dollar and california is a bit more important to America than Greece is to Europe).

The problem with a USE is how to govern it. Personally I would favour a US model with more States rights. It will never happen though because of all the narrow minded nationalists and xenophobes across Europe. So the OP writer can only dream on.

 

This is laughable. A Federation doesn't care what and how much you can 'export' as a constituent state; it doesn't need you to (anyway the term import and export does NOT apply WITHIN a federation...) ...and locally it only sells the products that are needed/afforded in that region/constituent state. Why isn't Alaska going bankrupt for not 'importing', from the successful American companies that make tons of them, as many yachts, water scooters and leisure boats as Florida and the Miami area does?

They may be both in the red partly because of a system that although mostly working well for them is obsolete when tried to be made compatible with the economic union that the EU is and partly because of the EU itself, because of its scattered decision making power, is a very incomplete part of a system that set itself in motion towards the Federation so long ago that the member states can't go back, they wouldn't know how, as their latest system shaped in the last decades has been formed on this EU, this only economical union. The economies of the EU states over the last decades have become too interdependent for that to happen. Yet they don't want to move ahead either. Europe is with one foot in and one foot out of the future and past era. But some people are still too conservative and full of prejudices to understand that national identity and political identity are no longer linked...in any way. To think that in the modern, peaceful current day European society one would want to impose an identity over another is barbaric parameters of thinking from centuries ago. Today we talk about money and jobs not shields and swords. Even if we did absurdly go to shields and swords it wouldn't be for the purpose of extinguishing an identity. Identities are strong and the more you would try to wipe one out the more it would affirm itself. So no identity is vanishing ever... Take the Scottish for example. They've been integrated into the United Kingdom before anyone knew the EU would emerge. Even though they may not exactly like it 100%, they do like it, like a 98% most would agree. And THEY HAVE NOT LOST THEIR IDENTITY. I lived in both England and Scotland. I never seen an English married to a Scottish. And they've been like this for how long...200 years? Take the Jews... They even had no country and were literally scattered all over the world and they didn't lose their identity and ways at all. Germany and France and all EU members aren't losing any bit of their character even though people are already free to move and be active anywhere. So looking again at the example of Scotland, that 2% is not significant enough to be logical for the Scottish to be independent. They wouldn't want it either. At the price of independence on some international papers they would go back 200 years. So could the EU jump 200 years ahead of itself through the Federation.

 

Oh I think you didn't get me in that you were still stuck with the small picture and talks you hear on TV that try to think their way around the current, absurd economic system... When I said cutting the costs of all Europe in the top post on page 2, it wasn't the kind of cuts they talk about on TV... Just a coincidence of words. And you can't compare a kingdom and a republic with a federation anyway. This whole thread is not about improving the crumbling existing economy in Europe! It's about replacing it. Starting a new one. A new economy. In a new dimension. In the federal dimension. Read my first comment on page 2 again.

 

What federation? so far we have a marriage that isn't working because someone is making money at the cost of someone else, our debts are Germany's earnings.

National identity isn't something that concerns me .
So you are saying that going Austrian is not the problem here but the "old ways EU follows" . the US doesn't follow any of those rules how come it got bust ?

 

People stop confusing the present with the proposed future, the present EU amalgam with the concept of the USE, the federation. Yes the Federation isn't here yet and as long as it isn't countries have no choice but get themselves indebted even further to competent self-standing economies like Germany which is actually doing more of a favor to them. Within the 'marriage' everyone has a responsibility. If those indebted economies are so self-standing and smartly designed within their own local economical movement then why do even themselves accept getting, yet further indebted to Germany?? Germany doesn't like it either. Germany doesn't want to pile up an Everest of paper bills in its backyard as you think, for its best interest... for that money would continue losing their value and make the situation worse as far as Germany and her exports are concerned. The more this happens the more toilet paper Germany is paid with for its fine products. Germany is, one of the few countries in the world that can firmly maintain its course, unshaken by causes that take the effect of national disaster in others. The current 6.8% unemployment rate is among the lowest in the world. Other EU members had a rate way higher than 6.8% in the best times and before 2008. If light can be seen at the end of the tunnel, it is Germany that is entitled more than anyone else to lead the way there. But you might say 'well it's the high demands of this marriage that burden the smaller EU economies'. This 'marriage' is something those states accepted long ago. Curiously a divorce is something they don't want either. So... Given the terribly confusing present situation, we should let Germany tell us even where up and down, left and right are.

For a country as proud and strong in terms of identity, economy, technology and everything and all the German discipline associated with their success at each of these levels, to have Angela Merkel openly demanding, in 2012 a political union with France, Britain and so on...and the unanimous ceding of power to Brussels, as soon as possible, that must give you an idea of the proportions of the situation we're in. There is no exit from the economic crisis under the current state of things. You can read Adrian Hamilton's article in The Independent. He mentions that this is not an economic but a political issue. I hope the forum administrators don't mind me posting a a link to this news site:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...-merkel-wants-is-political-union-7873415.html

Firstly USA has no old ways to follow. Up until very recently it was healthy and doing great and it would have stayed that way forever. It just happened to catch this economic disease, in the highest percentage if not the entire percentage from the reluctant EU member states that she got used to be interdependent with, who in the meantime got stuck on their way between two eras. This comes on top of the 9/11 when lots of Americans lost their savings and the dollar got significantly diluted through the loss of all sorts of bank papers, maybe even treasury though they may never admit it of the highest national importance in the absence of which you suddenly couldn't tell whose money is whose.

 

I'm quite a bit older than my avatar, although I try to stay fit. Thanks for noticing!

The Euro, in current market terms, is stronger than the dollar, however the currency is more fragile than most major ones. National currencies are backed by the Treasuries of their respective countries. Nothing backs the Euro. A financial crisis that causes one of the EU nations to pull out of the Euro could cause a cascade of other nations pulling out because, who is going to be left to hold the bag? Since no nation backs the Euro, if nations begin to pull out and start using national currencies Euros would quickly become worthless because they are backed by no one. Greece could end it's economic crisis during a weekend by switching back to the drachma, and letting it float. Sure it would cause hyper inflation, but Greeks might think that's a good trade.

I think that's why France and Germany have been fighting so hard to bail out Greece, long after it makes any kind of financial sense to do so. You're right, Greece, with an economy the size of the city of Boston isn't really that important to Europe. But once one country spins off, the other countries in dire straits will be tempted to do the same.

So yes, the Euro is strong now, and will remain strong right up until it isn't, and currency holders all over the world will be stuck with a currency no one wants to make good on.

 

So you understand very clearly why your original post was wrong. You express it here much better than I did. It was a throw away quip. If the USE was possible this would shore up the Euro as a strong currency underpinned by the economies of Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and France.