Federal Europe

i was just watching on the record and the alst discussion/round of reports was about the EU and a federal europe. it seems that all member states want more intergration, eg single currency, but not a europe wide taxation system. this seems odd to me, all the countries (with the possible exception of the UK) want more intergration but not a federal europe. i am totally for a federal europe, if the current system has a few tweaks, but why is there this restricting fear of intergration?

the only answers i can come up with are that the current system isn’t working and national pride. they seem rather insignificant when you look at the benefits, the biggest economy in the world, more funds availiable for public services/aid/defence/anything than another country in the world.

Maybe some people are afraid of what happened to the former Yugoslavia.

But its probably more to do with National Pride. There could be too much history to let a federal europe work. USA worked because it was a “new” country in the first place (lets admit it - the native americans didn’t have much say in it), with a mixture of cultures and not much history.

thats exactly it, we have all this histroy, the greatest history of any continent and yet we can’t put aside petty differences. if you look at european history it contains just about every great invention (eg communism , as well as a lot of wars, but now is the time to stop squabbling amongst ourselfs and take an opportunity to show the world how great europe can be.

my own position first: i am anti-national pride, anti-petty-squabbling, pro-cooperation but also anti-federal-europe.

i think that the different parts of europe can be linked by ties of friendship without needing political links as well. the more centralised a government is, the less attention is paid to the individual needs of the people in a specific region.

also (macca) - more funds perhaps but so much more to spend them on. how does that make more money available?!!

if you group together all the social services, national health services, police forces, etc etc then you can drastically reduce the number of burocrats who will no longer be needed (you could even do this now, by getting rid of nearly alot of burocrats and probably improving our civil services efficiency). with this newly reduced wage bill, as well as a much larger economoy to tax you have got a lot of free resources with which to improve standards of living, secutiry, etc.

being a federalist does not necessarily mean that you favour greater political or economic integration through the european union. the absolute rule of federalism, is that decisions should be made as close to the people they affect as possible.

yet you may wonder why the term ‘federalism’ is so synonamous with integration, the loss of national sovereignty, and supranational decision-making. the reason for this is that in the absence of barriers to trade between european union countries, and the global spread of free trade, an increasing number of political decisions (especially those regarding the regulation of markets) are most appropriately made at the international tier of government, that being, in the european union. also, with freedom of movement, including the freedom to work anywhere in the european union, there is the need to co-operate in areas of cross-border criminality, and other social issues that arise given such a freedom. this is why the european union has accumulated so many powers, a process mainly facilitated by the drive to make business environments more competitive, to improve industrial efficiency and bring down prices.

it is this very process which underpins the philosophy of their being a single currency, the euro. however, the presence of a single currency across europe demands that monetary policy be set at the eu, rather than by national governments.

the great paradox though , and the fundamental debate concerning the future of the european union, is that on the one hand there are those who are pushing for a ‘single market’ in europe, a larger market-base for firms to sell their products to, and idealists who have a sentimental vision of the eu in all its diversity, dynamism and conflict. whilst on the other hand, there are those who are absolute functionalists in terms of their vision of a federal europe, who argue that the more decisions are made by the eu, the further away they are being made from the people they affect. on this side of the debate, the process is seen as a threat to their national identity, and the fear is, that the ideal of europe nationhood is being introduced by stealth. these people assert the ‘principle of subsidiarity’, which stresses that decisions should be made at the lowest level of government as is possible.

whichever side you take, it is worth being aware of these primary arguments and of the trends which are seeing a fundmental rearrangement of where power lies, not just away from westminster/whitehall to the eu, but from westminster/whitehall to regional and local governments.

Sorry to be a smart-ass, but I couldn’t let this slide:

You Euros crack me up. It’s historical achievements like that make me proud to be an American. Seriously though, ancestor pride is hogwash. It’s how people console themselves for not doing anything important with their own lives. Better to toss aside pride and shame together and get on with the real work. Like building a federal Europe, not that it’s any of my business.

I’m gonna have to mention that I’m irish despite my better knowledge simply because I will be talking from my own point of view and it will be blatently obvious anyway. Creating a federal Europe or “superstate” would involve a uniformed tax and eduacation system. This would be greatly disliked by the Irish as our low corporation tax coupled with our highly eduacated workforce are what attracts busineses to us. If these were common then countries on the continent with good infrastructure and cheaper transport costs would attract all the business. A harmonised tax system would aslo fuel our drinking problem as prices for alcohol are massive due to the tax here.

The Irish are also very neutral and fear that a federal Europe will cause Europe to establish itself as a massive militaristic power and due to our size we would be forced into war. I’m sure I’ve got more to say but its getting late. Good night!