I dont agree with this. More centralized power just makes it harder for local and national changes and also makes it easier for lobbyists to undermine the interests of the general population for their own benefit
this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
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Oh, you're not alone. People think the choice is between national interests or Europe.
You won't agree with me on this, but in reality the choice is arguably between European interests or Chinese/foreign interests. Instead of choosing strength in unity, we're choosing to be divided and conquered.
Just look at the result of prioritizing national rather than European interests for defense. Not enough industrial capacity to support Ukraine, redundancies, limits on benefits of scale, taxpayer money disproportionately funding jobs in the US defense industry rather here in Europe, and Europe being to weak to scare off Russia from interference or perhaps even worse.
Just look at the greatest Eurosceptic parties. Inevitably they have ties to Russia or are pro-Russian.
Just look at alleged interference in the brexit referendum. The Kremlin had a good laugh about that one.
I don't expect to change your mind on this, and don't worry yours is the popular opinion. A European state won't happen. But I hope you understand why plenty of people are exasperated by this. Continued division will accelerate our decline, and rather than being able to defend our geostrategic interests, we will continue to be pushed around by superpowers. And it won't be inevitable. It will be a choice that we made.
The power already is centralized to a strong degree. But with an actual statelike system we would have full legislative power through democraticly elected parliaments and governments. With that more changes could happen, as they would now be represented, instead of having the mutant-organizations of comission and council without triple and quadruple indirectness between them and the citizens. That is where the lobbying power is so successfull. Because there is no democratic representation and hence no accountability in these structures.
More centralized power just makes it harder for local and national changes
Would that be a problem?
Yes
I was wondering the same thing. What would that entail for the less influential countries within the EU?
Here in Greece we could use some help. Our legal system is broken, the freedom of press is non-existent, police brutality is at an all time high, we don't have a train network (in general bad transport infrastructure), to name a few issues.
On the other hand, gentrification is as bad as it is right now, having to move out of the city I was born in and have loved all of my life because I cannot afford rent won't be fun.
Is it even true? USA has the same concept, and a lot of decisions are on a state level. China also has a lot of different local policies, even though in a totalitarian structure. Some cities have their own government, because they are so big. Germany has 16 states, which also do their own laws.
I don’t think it would be like France, where everything is mandated from Paris.
There are way too many small minded people in the EU at the moment to make this a reality.
The idea of a continuous closer integration of states within the EU is one of THE main founding ideas, though.
An ever closer union
We, as Europe, spend three to five times what Russia spends, and we are the second largest investor in military expenditure after the US. It is, therefore, a question of better coordination (…) It is a special moment when we have to review many of the assumptions of our being together”, he concluded.
Great statement here
Can we please stop this eternal debate about the EU becoming a state? I feel like it's besides the point and only evokes harmful reflexes on all sides. The question should be how to streamline and organize decision making. Who decides on which level about what. As Draghi points out correctly, certain stategic decisions should be made at an EU level. That would be more efficient, more impactful and help Europeans as a whole but it's not really about "turning the EU into a country". I get that "the sovereign nation state" has been the single one all-encompassing, all-powerful entity at the heart of political thinking since at least the 17th century but I just feel like it's no longer necessarily a helpful frame of reference for many developments in the 21st century.
We already have a not insignificant minority trying to leave the EU or destroy it. Imagine how many votes they get if the EU tries to become a state
It would probably be very difficult inside the current system. Maybe it would need to grow dynamically starting with central countries first and then moving further out. If Hungary and Slovakia prefer to be Russian puppets thats fine for them. I am sure they'll learn in due time.
Minority is exactly right. With Brexit they managed to sway enough floating morons with promises of golden palaces and full autonomy.
In the real world, where you have to cooperate to get anywhere on big issues, we quickly find out that throwing a tantrum because you're a grown-up that can determine its own bedtime just gets you discredited and tasked with "all right, let's see you manage all this stuff on your own then".
Putting this into perspective: The PVV won dutch elections recently and did so with 23% of the vote. It is well known that a significant portion ot those voters don't support all of Wilders' policy, they just want to see change. And Wilders' main argument for leaving the EU is "migrants bad, we want border control". Not exactly fully thought out.
The exact percentage of people that will actually vote to leave the EU if it even comes that far is likely not much higher. Combine that with the fact that everyone can see the UK doing just great, and the cances are slim any of this big talk actually leads to Nexit.
We're seeing the power of stupid people in large groups at work, but there are simply not enough of them to do any significant damage. Our political system makes it so that anyone has to cooperate to get anywhere, and Wilders needs support of at least 27% of the elected officials to get anything done. It is highly unlikely any of his more radical policies will survive that process.
You do not need every current EU member to agree to this. You just need enough for it to make sense. If for example you have German, France, Spain, Portugal and Belgium, which are the countries more or less in favor of federalism at the moment, it is enough for most of the effects of scale to work. Thats like half the population of the EU and with a large share of the GDP. Maybe some of the eastern members join as well, which would mean even more strength.
I hope it happens one day.
Yes pls.
How much is missing before you can simply call it a state? It's all about definition.
Plenty is still missing.
A constitution, a parliament with full legislative power, a unified legal system in key areas such as criminal law, federal political parties, a unified citizenship and a unified administrative system.
E.g. you would need to be subject to generally the same laws in France as you are in Italy, which are coming from one constitution that all lawmakers and courts need to uphold. When the passport you made in France need to be renewed you should be able to do that just as easily at any government office in Italy and during elections you should be able to vote the same parties that you were able to vote on before. And the people you elected need to be able to actually submit laws and the laws need to be able to pass purely in the parliament, without a veto and design power purely held by the government (comission).
I don't know about the parties. We have parties you can only vote for in certain Bundesländer. Like the CSU. You can only vote for them if you live in Bavaria. Or in Schleswig-Holstein there is the party for the Danish minority in Germany. Even in elections on a federal level
A constitution,
The EU has more of a constitution than the UK.
a parliament with full legislative power
Not necessary for statehood -- parliament is still the main legislative power, and requiring parliamentarians to draft laws has its own issues, you need tons of knowledgable staff to do it properly so it makes sense to centralise all the technocratic work. I agree though that staff should be split off from the commission into its independent thing, all three of parliament, commission, and council can then task it to come up with drafts regarding something.
a unified legal system in key areas such as criminal law
Not all federations have unified criminal law. In Germany it happens to be federal prerogative, but in e.g. the US every state has its own system.
a unified citizenship
We do have EU citizenship. Restrictions mostly apply to not being able to access other member's welfare systems if you haven't worked there for some time.
a unified administrative system.
Fuck no. Are you French or something where municipalities are run by Paris.
federal political parties
Already exist, though the large incumbents basically confederacies of parties... and newer, smaller, ones which started in a united Europe and developed their programme and identity in a pan-European context from the very beginning, like the Pirates and Volt, aren't recognised because not enough seats, neither in the EP nor member state parliaments.
But that brings me to the one actually crucial point: We need a European political sphere. Bluntly said as long as elections on the EU level are a vehicle to tell national parties whether they fucked up we're not there, yet, we're not one voting public but 27.
If ther parliament has no initiative right for legislation, there is no directly democratically legitimized legislative body. And the EU comission is way to indirect to be considered properly legitimized.
That the US is lackluster in its criminal system should not be an acceptable example for us.
While your citizenship extends to allowing you freedom in other EU countries there is still plenty differences outside the EU. But you wouldnt find it that inside a nation state people from one federal state can travel under different rules than people from another federal state. They are all subject to the same rules and that needs to be the case for the EU too, to achieve statehood.
With the unified administrative system it is not about control from one place. It is about uniform standards and uniform interactions. For instance getting married requires different papers and prerequisites depending on country. Things that are a complicated act with multiple personal appointments in Germany can be done in 5 minutes digitally in other countries. This is unacceptable for a nation state.
we do not really have eu wide political parties yet. there is alliances, but those are different and people can only vote the local part of the EU election. There is no EU wide electable lists and worst of all there is different rules to the countries EU elections. Something again impossible in a true collective nation state as elections need to be equal.
So we are still a long way from having the EU works as one nation state.
If ther parliament has no initiative right for legislation, there is no directly democratically legitimized legislative body. And the EU comission is way to indirect to be considered properly legitimized.
The parliament can order the comission to draft a law regarding a certain area, and then amend it to their heart's content. It's indirect, yes, but as said I think keeping the external drafters is actually a good idea. EU law is complex.
That the US is lackluster in its criminal system should not be an acceptable example for us.
The issue with the US is not structural, but that the enlightenment never arrived among the people there.
While your citizenship extends to allowing you freedom in other EU countries there is still plenty differences outside the EU. But you wouldnt find it that inside a nation state people from one federal state can travel under different rules than people from another federal state. They are all subject to the same rules and that needs to be the case for the EU too, to achieve statehood.
Well the EU is trying to make things like visa rules of other countries uniform for all EU citizens. Being a single state would certainly help with that but I don't think it's a prerequisite.
With the unified administrative system it is not about control from one place. It is about uniform standards and uniform interactions. For instance getting married requires different papers and prerequisites depending on country. Things that are a complicated act with multiple personal appointments in Germany can be done in 5 minutes digitally in other countries. This is unacceptable for a nation state.
It is the norm in Germany: Want to leave a public church? In one state you do that at the Standesamt, in another in the courthouse. Administration is state prerogative. Interoperability is a good thing but telling member states how to do their administration is a no-go, it's a breach of subsidiarity.
So we are still a long way from having the EU works as one nation state.
Agreed, however I'd still say that the lack of a European voting public is the main issue. The rest is details which will work themselves out or actually irrelevant. And the voting public thing is necessarily a generational project. If the whole electorate was Gen X and younger things would look very different indeed.
Never gonna happen LOL