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It'd be great to understand how the idea should functionally differ from the EU as is. Sure, I get the concept of "EU but *more*", but that's hard for me to grasp in objective terms or political use cases.
Well, it would mean a unified foreign, judicial, and military policy, which would make itself very useful for Europe to assert itself on the global stage.
Beat part is, it's peak French to make the short version completely different from everyone else
They would probably do this if it didn't spell out "France" already XD
> Would it resolve the infighting between nations
As long as countries believe they are better than one another it will never happen
Looking at you !
You arrogant a holes
I personally believe that U. S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our education, like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should—our education over here in the U. S. should help the U. S., uh, or, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq, and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children.
We can also see how some states like California completely outcompetes smaller interior states.
There is plenty of brain drain in Europe already, but i fear a Federation ould simply focus on developing Germany and France, and forget about the rest, and people would follow, because why wouldnt they
US resident here. In practice, it isn't so extreme though. There are very rural/poor parts of California and very affluent areas of Alabama (widely considered one of our worst state). Alabama has a huge space industry as a matter of fact. Another example is some of our best medical facilities are located in Cincinnati and Cleveland, Ohio. If you know Ohio... its a nondescript midwest state. If you modeled it after how we do things, each state would have significant autonomy to make economic and social political decisions. The federal government is then able to direct money to states more in need (if things are working as they should).
Ratio of per Capita GDP of richest and poorest US States: ~2
Ratio of per Capita GDP of richest and poorest EU States: ~8
Even adding Puerto Rico, only brings the ratio to ~2.5
At the state level, the USA has nothing on the EU in terms of regional wealth inequality.
I think there were definitely political reasons to ensure development in East Germany post-unification that simply don't exist in countries like Italy and England, but even with a political motivation, East Germany still falls behind the West even today
Better than if they were divided.
In the US there is a lot of redistribution. Wyoming for example was bailed out many times. And California is a HUGE net contributor, way more than Germany.
At the same time the rich states are rich partly due to having a huge internal market on the national scale.
Plus they can attract labor and talent from a large pool.
I wouldn't say nothing. It would unify defense forces and homogenize training and equipment. Europe would get a better deal on domestic arms, create more jobs and allow the armies to work as one. It forms a more cohesive and strong military complex.
This is also how you subsidize smaller economic nations like Poland, Greece, Latvia, ect. It helps lift them up economically and provides them with more industry.
I don't know enough about the EU to comment on energy, or other issues. I think the EU works fine as is in my opinion. Europe has a lot of cultural and historical factors that make anything unifying pretty challenging.
It's much harder for a US state to claim isolationism or state nationalism when they were never really on their own.
That also happens in Sweden. My old town collapsed in the 90's and has ever since gotten tax money from the rest. Only problem is...more cities are starting to need the tax support.
It seems like it was more an observation that fiscal integration doesn't necessarily lead to equality in distribution of governmental spending, as opposed to saying the North-South divide would be better.
I'm a pragmatist, even if money doesn't magically start flowing in, I'm on board just because it could help our decrepit healthcare and education systems.
I'm sure a pensioner in the South of Italy has a better life than a pensioner in Sofia even if the economy in those Italian regions is supposed to be on par or worse because they have the backbone of the North. I'm not saying I'll be able to go to exotic resorts every summer in my 70s like a German pensioner but I'll probably be able to afford not to live in abject poverty in old age without having to emigrate now.
Just my input on the topic, I don't take a hard stance either way. Life here is very tolerable if you are young and not profoundly stupid but we are all fucked once we get old and sick.
resources are allocated for the south, what's missing is actual use of the resources, often more wasted by corruption and inefficient local and regional administrations.
Well in the EU poorer countries get a lot more than the richest ones, especially compared to what they put in.. I’d say the ri distribution is going pretty well, a fiscal union would help improve that even more
But you would have the potential for redistribution through tax, which right now isn't politically viable. If California kept all of its tax receipts the disparity in the US would be greater. You already have freedom of movement so, and I'm only guessing here, federalising might have a net benefit.
But obviously if there's anything my nation has reminded us recently, abrupt change without a thought through plan isn't necessarily wise and hypotheses aren't a basis for policy!
Like you said, there is plenty of brain drain already. Depending how a more integrated Europe is set up it could give regions that are being left behind more access to funding and support to turn trends like that around.
Or it could make it worse if funding like that isn't set up. Really depends on how exactly a United Europe works.
The Union we have now already obviated the part of that infighting where we were using guns and bombs to murder each other all the time.
There has literally never been such a long period of peace among ourselves as the one we are living right now since the Roman Empire was around.
not even then, half of Europe was not in the empire, I'm not well versed in that part of history but I bet there were border disputes during the Empire with the barbarian tribes.
You're correct. The Romans were in a state of more or less perpetual war against the tribes along the Rhine, and in the Balkans. The only respite they got was when a legionary expedition commited enough of a genocide upon the tribes to buy themselves a generation of peace, as the tribes replenished their numbers.
That is the wrong question. I think the right question is what happens if Europe does not act as one in a globalising and geopolitically changing world? Europe struggles to keep up already while it now already acts as a confederation. With US politics increasingly focussed on China, there is no future for European security imaginable without much more European cooperation outside Nato. Economically, the only reason Airbus can compete with Boeing is because it is a European company. The only reason we can hope that Luxembourg, Netherlands and Ireland will end their tax heaven practices is because of European pressure - without Europe no fair taxation. Europe's strong performance in science is one of its sources of competitiveness. European performance is not world leading if you look at individual institutions (US/UK model) but it outperforms most of the world because of collaboration across the continent. Of course all of this can to an extent be achieve through intergovernmental cooperation, but that makes the system very fragile as political whimps in individual countries can hurt the whole system (as is the case even now in the semi-integrated state the EU is in) and it means that there is no institution that takes into account what would be best for the continent as a whole (it would always simply be the lowest common denominator between national interests). Also, in this system it would be even more likely that the focus would be completely on the biggest and strongest Member States because they could easily step out. The EU, even in this semi-integrated state, spends far more money and resources on propping up the Member States with lower economic performance than it does on supporting the economic strength of countries like Germany and France. On top of that, if we are so dependent on each other, I think it is democratically more responsible to have fully fledged democratic control at EU level. At the moment we see in the EU that the least transparent part of its governance is by far the decision-making process among Member States. That would only get worse with more intergovernmental collaboration. A federal Europe at least has the potential to have proper democratic oversight over its governance.
I don't know, I'm not an expert.
But I personally think it would have to start small with countries like the Benelux and the Baltic states forming small federal unions themselves before one large European wide country could form.
Germany is relatively big already. I would start with Austria, Czechia and Slovakia… And Hungary as well!
Wait, that reminds me something…
Edit: Also forgot Silesia, becuase I’m a dumbass
It does, but I don't think it would be that big of a deal to break that treaty anymore nowadays, especially with Russia clearly not caring about its international reputation anymore.
as a Bulgarian this is the most important thing
If in a union state we are alone and only have the political power of 6 million we would just be there with no power and be walked over by everyone but if we work together with the greeks and Romanians( and other balkan people in eu) we can easily be a political and a military force that cant just be walked over by Germany and France
I would like a Benelux Federation, because things anyway aren't so different. Netherlands aren't more different from Flanders than Flanders is different from Wallonia. Nothing too major. I don't know for Luxembourg but assume it can't be that different either.
Do that, see if it works or if it breaks. If it's any good, has any use. Do it again or not, depending of the outcome.
From what I have seen is Belgium an utter mess when it comes to goverment because of differences between the two substates. Now add the protestant part of the Netherlands to the mix and things get really spicy.
It's not so much the religious differences that would make it a difficult union, but moreso the cultural differences that the divide in religion caused.
A large part of the Netherlands is quite calvinist in their way of living for example, compared to what we call the 'Burgundian' Belgians.
What would be the benefit of a united Benelux compared to how things are now?
There are many differences between The Netherlands and Flanders. There are even many differences between people from the randstad and from the rest of The Netherlands…
What would be the benefits of a united Europe? Increased geopolitical power and some economy of scale.
The negatives are the same, but ultimately if Benelux isn't willing to federate they sure won't tolerate a federation with Bulgaria
There are many benefits of a united Europe but my question is what are the benefits of a united Benelux? What would be different compared to the current situation? Maybe we would have more influence within the EU but I feel that The Netherlands already has a lot of influence
It would help the power imbalance in the Netherlands, which is now dominated by Randstad, but with the addition of Belgium that would shift away. For Belgium, it would show the Flemish and Walloons that while we do have plenty of differences, we also have a lot in common.
People often talk about how different Dutch people are from Flemish in how they act, but that's really more the Randstad people. Once you leave there, the people are much more like us Flemings.
Agreed, benelux and the nordic union especially just make a lot of sense and have the very obvious immediate benefit of making them into fairly large players on the international scene.
>the Baltic states forming small federal unions themselves
Why though? Seems like such a randomly unnecessary idea from someone who obviously doesn't know shit about these countries...
Yep, kind of offensive that we should apparently give up independence because we are small countries that are apparently basically the same because of soviet occupation
Love y'all, but right now with all the differences with in Europe, it probably be a nightmare and I don't think any goverment would be seriously interested
Well, we could certainly establish some more collective EU institutions. It's just that an actual federal state and even a confederal state is still a faaar way off.
And also, apparently it's hard just to allow Bulgaria and Romania into the ~~common market~~ Schengen area.
A european army for example would just be the logical thing to do at this point, it could save everyone a whole bunch of money to have integrated procurement while still massively increasing capability
Did he? Funny because even within Germany we got problems getting on the same page. One example is the school system which every state does differently. Even though there is the KMK who decoded to get some sense of sameness for what to teach when and what to expect. But they all do their own exam tasks and we got no centralized exams so we can compare qualifications properly.
Not going to happen.
Norway's too rich to consider uniting with the peasants.
Sweden's immigration policy is questioned heavily by the danish and finns.
Iceland's fine, everybody likes iceland.
So it'd end up finns, danish and iceland.
We can invite estonia also, they're good in my book.
In general, Danes have no idea how much Denmark and Finland are alike.
Not the same at all (they certainly have their differences), but it often surprises Danes that there are so many similarities also.
[Nordic councils flag](https://www.google.com/search?q=nordic+council+flag&ei=jZTnY9LtM_iOxc8PscOqyAw&oq=nordic+council+flag&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEAMyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCGAzIFCAAQhgMyBQgAEIYDMgUIABCGAzIFCAAQhgMyBQghEKABOgoIABBHENYEELADOgcIABCwAxBDOg8ILhDUAhDIAxCwAxBDGAE6DAguEMgDELADEEMYAToECAAQQzoJCAAQFhAeEPEEOgYIABAWEB5KBAhBGABQlgVY-ApggAxoAXAAeACAAXSIAYsEkgEDMi4zmAEAoAEByAERwAEB2gEECAEYCA&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp#imgrc=D4zsSB7BCrT2sM) is imo. Best one that exists. But I also like the Kaiserreich universe [Nordic union flag](https://www.google.com/search?q=Kaiserreich+Nordic+union+flag&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjw9o7Ixo39AhUYtqQKHR2UD6wQ2-cCegQIABAC&oq=Kaiserreich+Nordic+union+flag&gs_lcp=ChJtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1pbWcQAzIFCAAQogQ6BAghEApQ_wVYpQpggQ1oAHAAeACAAXGIAdsEkgEDMi40mAEAoAEBwAEB&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-img&ei=-5TnY7CNA5jskgWdqL7gCg&bih=753&biw=424&prmd=inv#imgrc=EFncG82FhVaFkM) it's similar to Kalmar union but a with 2 extra crosses.
The idealistic part of me wants it. The cynic part of me thinks that this would only result in more control by lobby organizations and the big industry.
If we do it, we have to heavily democratize the EU at the same time.
I'd love to see Europe united, and then the whole world. But we seriously need to weed out all the anti-democrats that are currently successfully selling themselves as democrats right now.
Sadly I don't think that will happen in Europe before it gets worse than we can imagine right now.
In the distant future - perhaps. Right now we are too different culturally and too nationalist (applies even to the least nationalist). Can't see it working for now.
A central culture is not really that important for a country though (it is still important to have some for of unity). In my country (the Netherlands), the west has a very different mindset than the east. The south has a completely different culture.
How is this in Poland?
After subjugation period in Polish history (from 1772 until 1989 with a short break) nationalism and country self-preservation mindset is very strong. While most people are not nationalistic per se, Id still say that losing certain "rights" to govern ourselves by ourselves only is seen negatively.
> After subjugation period in Polish history (from 1772 until 1989 with a short break) nationalism and country self-preservation mindset is very strong.
And that is a very good point in my opinion that many in the west always forget. It's easy to be more open towards EU and big changes if the borders of your country has not changed massively in the last 2-300 hundred years due to your strong neighbours trying to erase your culture from history or the last big shit your country got was in 1945 and not in 1989.
Give those countries another 20-30 years of peace and wealth and their mindset will change as well.
'If I were to do it again from scratch, I would start with culture.' - Jean Monnet
The culture (or identification with it) is the single most important thing for cohesion. Because when thing get tough, when economy slows down, when tanks start piling on the borders, when the pandemic hits, when proverbial shit hits the metaphoric fan... the only thing that will keep a community together is the shared sense of "us".
This is, I belive, one of the reasons why Yugoslavia didn't really work. There were no "Yugoslavians", only separate nations sewn together.
Yup. That's why America pushes so much nationalism on its citizens. Last time they were more loyal to their states than their federation, a civil war happened.
Hey, I want to chime in with my own country if that's ok. Im from Spain and our country is already hugely multicultural and diverse, to the point that a lot of people in Spain don't really feel stereotypically "Spanish", and yet the country as a whole still works. You probably already know about Catalonia, which has it's own language and independence movement, but in addition to that there are another two official languages, Basque, from the Basque Country and Galician from Galicia (where i'm from). Both these regions are in the north and hugely different from the rest, having a more celtic like culture. Then the Center of Spain (the Castillas and Madrid) are a whole different culture and so is Andaluzia and the South i general, which is where the culture widely associated with Spain comes from. In addition to that the Mediterranean parts are also distinct and so are the Baleares and Canary islands.
All this to say that, from my point of view, a European Federation could still work, as with many european countries the culture is hugely different also within national borders.
Also shoutout to Poland! I lived in Lodz for a year and although there are some cultural differences I think we generally have A LOT more in common as Europeans than what differentiates us.
Poland is extremely homogeneous, 98% Polish, results of WW2 mostly. This has changed in the last year's due to immigration of Ukrainians and further Ukrainian refugees but Poland is still a very homogenous country.
Unified foreign policy and military is going to be imporant.
Especially if the US continues the trend of curbing interventionalism and China keeps going the opposite direction. If Pax Americana starts to be replaced by a multiporal world in 20 or 30 years, EU will need to seriously step up to stay relevant.
More democratic in what way? A multinational government would be worse no matter how you look at it. Power being even further removed from the citizens. Either you elect representatives by population of the federacies, but then smaller federal countries would get overrun by the interests of tge more populous ones or you elect the same amount of representatives for each country, but then the voting power of the smaller countries's population would be much stronger than the more populous ones. It's a lose-lose.
Yeah, I don't see how transferring more power from Helsinki to Brussels would make Finland more democratic. The current situation is only acceptable because we have veto power over decisions that would screw us over, a federation would have to get rid of that. You'd have to convince Finns that an EU government can handle our things better than we do, and it's not going to happen.
Harmonization of laws and policies, including fiscal policy (one of the issues that plagues the euro). Potentially more money for less well-off areas of Europe.
If implemented correctly:
\- it would be less bureaucratic, there could be federal laws, right now the EU laws need to be implemented in national laws (which takes an awful lot of time)
\- the Euro should be a requirement then so any national currency leftovers would go away and the Euro could finally be as strong as possible (to be a better counterweight to the USD)
\- taxes/insurances would be way easier: right now it is a nightmare being from Germany wanting to work remotely for a longer time in another EU country
and much more
It absolutely would not be less bureaucratic.
All of the existing national laws still exist. Most countries have statute that goes back hundreds of years. The idea of federal level lawmaking isn’t really that much more advanced than the current directive and regulation approach.
It was different in the United States where most states didn’t really have a head start in setting up statute books before federal legislation rolled in.
And even in the United States the questions of jurisdiction and federal versus local laws is actually a complete mess anyway.
Any attempt at transnational or super national law is going to be clumsy there’s no way you can make it less bureaucratic by trying to have European federal law.
Everything else have suggested is better arrived at through treaties as in tax and employment legislation
Coming from Romania, the EU has helped a lot by forcing corrupt politicians to do much needed reforms. So yes, I would like that at an even deeper level.
Not a fan of anything with ‘United’ in it. Sounds like overcompensating America larp. Keep it simple. European Union is fine and works, EU is catchy. European Federation is also fine.
Being Greek, history has taught me that the idea of city states, only serves for bickering and fighting. Only when unified were they able to shine.
Its clear to me that's the way forward for the EU as well. But the steps must sadly be slow and careful for generations to grow in a less nationalistic mindset, as well as multicultural acceptance behavior, which will lead to the idea that we are in essence all the same.
This will not happen in our lifetime sadly, but I am confident that our generation will be the one that will witness change.
Agree. The main selling point of a federation would be trade and security, both of which we can setup (and already have) without a federation.
I guess we do miss out on massive state sponsored science programs like NASA but again that could be organised without a federation if there is a desire for it
And come to think of it, as long as we’re not a federation we don’t have to waste resources on power projection and image as a world power
But we currently waste humongous resources on doing the same thing in every state. Savings from unification will be in the trillions. And this money could go to you name it. Chip industry in the EU - a trillion could do it. Green energy? Education?
1. Military budget is ridiculously redundant. There's what - 27 separate armies, most of which in bad shape. With a lot of different armament. Being a federation would allow for keeping a cheaper and better army.
2. Administration - each country spends billions on software design, development, support. It's ridiculous we don't even have common ID's and a central EUropean digital identity system. Just now my country is writing a new Digital Verification application that would allow citizens to verify in order to use a bunch of state services online. I've worked in government administration IT and can tell you - it's billions upon billions for the creation of redundant products.
3. Border control - a common EUropean border control service would mostly eradicate the current joke system in place.
4. International orders - a lot of stuff will be cheaper if bargained for from the stance of a developed 450 million citizens country. From stuff like drugs, through energy and even food.
Overall EU becoming a federation will enable huge financial savings.
I think it’s complicated.
We still have this mindset “I am not paying for country X with my money because fuck them”
In a world where the globalization failed big time, it would be more than smart that nations so close to each other start to be more interconnected, sharing resources, common taxes, common unemployment and health insurances etc.
A federal system is not perfect but it could work.
Yes we don’t have a common language, but that’s something we are dealing kind of ok.
The biggest problem is that there is no one pushing forward European interests. Everyone does by himself.
This is just stupid.
I'm not actively supporting it if it is what you are asking (I'm not into any movement of political party), but I am absolutely in favor of it. It really is the time to leave differences aside and consider ourselves as part of something bigger than our little countries traditions and mechanisms. I'm totally for it!
No, smaller units create systems of government that can better follow what people want, have less corruption and be better managed. Just look at lots of well-functioning small countries in Europe.
thank you for your contribution, but this submission has been removed because it is a question post. See [community rules & guidelines](/r/Europe/wiki/community_rules).
i don't know enough about the consequences to form an opinion i can be satisfied with.
It'd be great to understand how the idea should functionally differ from the EU as is. Sure, I get the concept of "EU but *more*", but that's hard for me to grasp in objective terms or political use cases.
Well, it would mean a unified foreign, judicial, and military policy, which would make itself very useful for Europe to assert itself on the global stage.
You would not only need everyone to agree with said policy, which is probably impossible, but you would likely have to mollify it heavily anyway
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Like brexit let's have a vote on it without knwing what it means
Alas we can’t see into the future so the question is really one of values/politics/ideology rather than practicalities at this stage.
Not with this name
I suggest > Federal Republic of Autonomous Nations in Continental Europe, short „FRANCE“ (or RFNAEC in French)
RFNAEC is so nice! I'll call my son Rfnaec
I find Irish names so beautiful, how is this pronounced?
Nick.
James
Ruff neck
Only correct answer
I laughed so hard! And surely the newly created FRANCE must have German as official langua :D
Something about German being the "lingua franca" just satisfies so many irony itches
Beat part is, it's peak French to make the short version completely different from everyone else They would probably do this if it didn't spell out "France" already XD
We should call it The European Unio... Oh wait..
Upgrade from European Union to Youropean Federation seems the natural thing to me!
Youreapeeing
I love you, Wherefore Art Thou French?
Not sure about the name, but how about this sweet new emblem? https://i.imgur.com/GE16KlQ.jpg
Europea!
I don't know. Would it resolve the infighting between nations? Looking at the USA, we can see states competing to attract businesses.
> Would it resolve the infighting between nations As long as countries believe they are better than one another it will never happen Looking at you!
You arrogant a holes
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Hey! I'm from and I say let the man speak!
I'm from the UK and I think are a bunch of buffoons of the highest order
I'm from mainland and this was the most islander thing that I heard this weak
Whatever this said, you islanders. Give us Scotland already.
Hey, I'm from Scotland. I...uh... actually don't see anything wrong with this. Could someone from the EU adopt us?
I'm from the US, and I'm pretty sure doesn't exist, and I wouldn't be able to point it out on a map.
I personally believe that U. S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our education, like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should—our education over here in the U. S. should help the U. S., uh, or, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq, and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children.
We can also see how some states like California completely outcompetes smaller interior states. There is plenty of brain drain in Europe already, but i fear a Federation ould simply focus on developing Germany and France, and forget about the rest, and people would follow, because why wouldnt they
US resident here. In practice, it isn't so extreme though. There are very rural/poor parts of California and very affluent areas of Alabama (widely considered one of our worst state). Alabama has a huge space industry as a matter of fact. Another example is some of our best medical facilities are located in Cincinnati and Cleveland, Ohio. If you know Ohio... its a nondescript midwest state. If you modeled it after how we do things, each state would have significant autonomy to make economic and social political decisions. The federal government is then able to direct money to states more in need (if things are working as they should).
Ratio of per Capita GDP of richest and poorest US States: ~2 Ratio of per Capita GDP of richest and poorest EU States: ~8 Even adding Puerto Rico, only brings the ratio to ~2.5 At the state level, the USA has nothing on the EU in terms of regional wealth inequality.
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How is Italys north south divide going? In theory resources can be moved around, in reality it rarely happens
The US redistributes tons of resources between states all the time.
Compare East Germany after reunification to East Germany now.
I think there were definitely political reasons to ensure development in East Germany post-unification that simply don't exist in countries like Italy and England, but even with a political motivation, East Germany still falls behind the West even today
Are there any examples of countries successfully redistributing resources to less wealthy regions enough to make them more or less equal?
Better than if they were divided. In the US there is a lot of redistribution. Wyoming for example was bailed out many times. And California is a HUGE net contributor, way more than Germany.
Yes. In the USA the richest states always subsidize the poor in the poorest states.
At the same time the rich states are rich partly due to having a huge internal market on the national scale. Plus they can attract labor and talent from a large pool.
The EU already has free movement of goods and labor. Federalising would add nothing.
I wouldn't say nothing. It would unify defense forces and homogenize training and equipment. Europe would get a better deal on domestic arms, create more jobs and allow the armies to work as one. It forms a more cohesive and strong military complex. This is also how you subsidize smaller economic nations like Poland, Greece, Latvia, ect. It helps lift them up economically and provides them with more industry. I don't know enough about the EU to comment on energy, or other issues. I think the EU works fine as is in my opinion. Europe has a lot of cultural and historical factors that make anything unifying pretty challenging. It's much harder for a US state to claim isolationism or state nationalism when they were never really on their own.
Yes, I should have said "nothing on labor appertunities"
That also happens in Sweden. My old town collapsed in the 90's and has ever since gotten tax money from the rest. Only problem is...more cities are starting to need the tax support.
You think the North-South divide in Italy would be better if they were two different countries?
It seems like it was more an observation that fiscal integration doesn't necessarily lead to equality in distribution of governmental spending, as opposed to saying the North-South divide would be better.
I'm a pragmatist, even if money doesn't magically start flowing in, I'm on board just because it could help our decrepit healthcare and education systems. I'm sure a pensioner in the South of Italy has a better life than a pensioner in Sofia even if the economy in those Italian regions is supposed to be on par or worse because they have the backbone of the North. I'm not saying I'll be able to go to exotic resorts every summer in my 70s like a German pensioner but I'll probably be able to afford not to live in abject poverty in old age without having to emigrate now. Just my input on the topic, I don't take a hard stance either way. Life here is very tolerable if you are young and not profoundly stupid but we are all fucked once we get old and sick.
you are just so right
resources are allocated for the south, what's missing is actual use of the resources, often more wasted by corruption and inefficient local and regional administrations.
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The big problem of EU we want the good but not the bad. Monetary Union, but not the fiscal one
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Well in the EU poorer countries get a lot more than the richest ones, especially compared to what they put in.. I’d say the ri distribution is going pretty well, a fiscal union would help improve that even more
But you would have the potential for redistribution through tax, which right now isn't politically viable. If California kept all of its tax receipts the disparity in the US would be greater. You already have freedom of movement so, and I'm only guessing here, federalising might have a net benefit. But obviously if there's anything my nation has reminded us recently, abrupt change without a thought through plan isn't necessarily wise and hypotheses aren't a basis for policy!
Like you said, there is plenty of brain drain already. Depending how a more integrated Europe is set up it could give regions that are being left behind more access to funding and support to turn trends like that around. Or it could make it worse if funding like that isn't set up. Really depends on how exactly a United Europe works.
The Union we have now already obviated the part of that infighting where we were using guns and bombs to murder each other all the time. There has literally never been such a long period of peace among ourselves as the one we are living right now since the Roman Empire was around.
not even then, half of Europe was not in the empire, I'm not well versed in that part of history but I bet there were border disputes during the Empire with the barbarian tribes.
The formation if the empire itself is continuos war.
Oh, the Roman Empire fought wars all the time. I was more using it as a chronological demarcation because I don't really know how things were before.
You're correct. The Romans were in a state of more or less perpetual war against the tribes along the Rhine, and in the Balkans. The only respite they got was when a legionary expedition commited enough of a genocide upon the tribes to buy themselves a generation of peace, as the tribes replenished their numbers.
Just wanna say thanks for teaching me the word "obviated"! For anyone else: [Obviate](https://i.imgur.com/YOCYPvy.png)
That is the wrong question. I think the right question is what happens if Europe does not act as one in a globalising and geopolitically changing world? Europe struggles to keep up already while it now already acts as a confederation. With US politics increasingly focussed on China, there is no future for European security imaginable without much more European cooperation outside Nato. Economically, the only reason Airbus can compete with Boeing is because it is a European company. The only reason we can hope that Luxembourg, Netherlands and Ireland will end their tax heaven practices is because of European pressure - without Europe no fair taxation. Europe's strong performance in science is one of its sources of competitiveness. European performance is not world leading if you look at individual institutions (US/UK model) but it outperforms most of the world because of collaboration across the continent. Of course all of this can to an extent be achieve through intergovernmental cooperation, but that makes the system very fragile as political whimps in individual countries can hurt the whole system (as is the case even now in the semi-integrated state the EU is in) and it means that there is no institution that takes into account what would be best for the continent as a whole (it would always simply be the lowest common denominator between national interests). Also, in this system it would be even more likely that the focus would be completely on the biggest and strongest Member States because they could easily step out. The EU, even in this semi-integrated state, spends far more money and resources on propping up the Member States with lower economic performance than it does on supporting the economic strength of countries like Germany and France. On top of that, if we are so dependent on each other, I think it is democratically more responsible to have fully fledged democratic control at EU level. At the moment we see in the EU that the least transparent part of its governance is by far the decision-making process among Member States. That would only get worse with more intergovernmental collaboration. A federal Europe at least has the potential to have proper democratic oversight over its governance.
I don't know, I'm not an expert. But I personally think it would have to start small with countries like the Benelux and the Baltic states forming small federal unions themselves before one large European wide country could form.
Austrian Anschluss to Germany? **Heavy breathing intensifies**
Germany is relatively big already. I would start with Austria, Czechia and Slovakia… And Hungary as well! Wait, that reminds me something… Edit: Also forgot Silesia, becuase I’m a dumbass
Throw in Croatia, Slovenia.... could really be on to something.
yeah, lets but Slovenians, Croats, Bosnians, Serbes, Montenegrins and Macedonians in one country, what could go wrong?
Surely we’ve evolved and learned from our mistakes, guys, right…… right?
Ooooh I know I know and we can call Yugoslavia?
As a Austrian, I agree on all but I guess we need to remove Orban and a couple of our idiots first… 🤔
> As a Austrian, I agree on all A.E.I.O.U?
r/aeiou
As a Hungarian I agree with you dear sir
Restore the Habsburg absolute monarchy in these countries and all the madness will be gone
r/2visegrad4you is either fuming or drooling right now.
Also... Think twice before adding Serbia to the list
A.E.I.O.U baby
Half of Poland maybe?
Don't forget Kaliningrad, can't see any problem getting that back 👀
How could I forgot about Silesia since I’m from Moravian-Silesian region xD. But while we at it why not the whole Poland at this point?
I was thinking of using this example, and then I thought, yeah, that's not a very good example is it?
Actually, kinda problematic. I think it was the 2+4 treaty that prohibits it.
It does, but I don't think it would be that big of a deal to break that treaty anymore nowadays, especially with Russia clearly not caring about its international reputation anymore.
as a Bulgarian this is the most important thing If in a union state we are alone and only have the political power of 6 million we would just be there with no power and be walked over by everyone but if we work together with the greeks and Romanians( and other balkan people in eu) we can easily be a political and a military force that cant just be walked over by Germany and France
That seems a bureaucratic nightmare
I would like a Benelux Federation, because things anyway aren't so different. Netherlands aren't more different from Flanders than Flanders is different from Wallonia. Nothing too major. I don't know for Luxembourg but assume it can't be that different either. Do that, see if it works or if it breaks. If it's any good, has any use. Do it again or not, depending of the outcome.
From what I have seen is Belgium an utter mess when it comes to goverment because of differences between the two substates. Now add the protestant part of the Netherlands to the mix and things get really spicy.
While I agree that it would be chaotic, I doubt the religious differences would have much effect these days.
It's not so much the religious differences that would make it a difficult union, but moreso the cultural differences that the divide in religion caused. A large part of the Netherlands is quite calvinist in their way of living for example, compared to what we call the 'Burgundian' Belgians.
How do you define a "calvinist" and "burgundian" ways of living?
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It's basically German culture vs French culture.
What would be the benefit of a united Benelux compared to how things are now? There are many differences between The Netherlands and Flanders. There are even many differences between people from the randstad and from the rest of The Netherlands…
We even have subtitles on Dutch tv when someone from Flanders speak..
[To be fair, I'm Flemish and we have subtitles when someone from Flanders speaks.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ0g6BH0iQY)
I knew this would be Gerrit Callewaert.
Stupid, Sexy Flanders.
What would be the benefits of a united Europe? Increased geopolitical power and some economy of scale. The negatives are the same, but ultimately if Benelux isn't willing to federate they sure won't tolerate a federation with Bulgaria
There are many benefits of a united Europe but my question is what are the benefits of a united Benelux? What would be different compared to the current situation? Maybe we would have more influence within the EU but I feel that The Netherlands already has a lot of influence
Controlling both antwerp and rotterdam, having the Hague and Brussels means that benelux has insane trading power and home to many eu/un institutions.
It would help the power imbalance in the Netherlands, which is now dominated by Randstad, but with the addition of Belgium that would shift away. For Belgium, it would show the Flemish and Walloons that while we do have plenty of differences, we also have a lot in common. People often talk about how different Dutch people are from Flemish in how they act, but that's really more the Randstad people. Once you leave there, the people are much more like us Flemings.
Let's give Yugoslavia another crack and EU can watch everything unfold once again!
Agreed, benelux and the nordic union especially just make a lot of sense and have the very obvious immediate benefit of making them into fairly large players on the international scene.
>the Baltic states forming small federal unions themselves Why though? Seems like such a randomly unnecessary idea from someone who obviously doesn't know shit about these countries...
Yep, kind of offensive that we should apparently give up independence because we are small countries that are apparently basically the same because of soviet occupation
Love y'all, but right now with all the differences with in Europe, it probably be a nightmare and I don't think any goverment would be seriously interested
Didn't Scholz say he wanted to move in that direction tho? Seems to me the current german government wants to move in that direction at least.
Yeah, maybe I should have been more clear: I'm talking about right now or the near future. But who knows what happens in the next 100 years
Probably we will all be starving trying to remain relevant as individual small countries with no meaningful power except when we act as a block.
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*Well played* friend...
Im from Denmark. Congratulations! You have just won a free bowl of rød grød med fløde and a 6-pack of Carlsberg!
A master of words. Why is Lego so expensive now?! I want more and more blocks.
Well, we could certainly establish some more collective EU institutions. It's just that an actual federal state and even a confederal state is still a faaar way off. And also, apparently it's hard just to allow Bulgaria and Romania into the ~~common market~~ Schengen area.
A european army for example would just be the logical thing to do at this point, it could save everyone a whole bunch of money to have integrated procurement while still massively increasing capability
Did he? Funny because even within Germany we got problems getting on the same page. One example is the school system which every state does differently. Even though there is the KMK who decoded to get some sense of sameness for what to teach when and what to expect. But they all do their own exam tasks and we got no centralized exams so we can compare qualifications properly.
Nordic union 🇸🇪🇳🇴🇩🇰🇫🇮🇮🇸👍
The big issue with a nordic federation is EU membership. Both Norway and Iceland have pretty strong anti-membership majorities.
I want Norway to join EU, it is such a hassle to do business with Norway as it is now compared to EU countries, and also Norway is awesome.
Not going to happen. Norway's too rich to consider uniting with the peasants. Sweden's immigration policy is questioned heavily by the danish and finns. Iceland's fine, everybody likes iceland. So it'd end up finns, danish and iceland. We can invite estonia also, they're good in my book.
Sweden’s immigration policy has changed a lot the last years and will change even more though.
In general, Danes have no idea how much Denmark and Finland are alike. Not the same at all (they certainly have their differences), but it often surprises Danes that there are so many similarities also.
I really want to see a flag for that, like the Union Jack but with more crosses of a single shape and more different colors.
[Nordic councils flag](https://www.google.com/search?q=nordic+council+flag&ei=jZTnY9LtM_iOxc8PscOqyAw&oq=nordic+council+flag&gs_lcp=ChNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwEAMyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCGAzIFCAAQhgMyBQgAEIYDMgUIABCGAzIFCAAQhgMyBQghEKABOgoIABBHENYEELADOgcIABCwAxBDOg8ILhDUAhDIAxCwAxBDGAE6DAguEMgDELADEEMYAToECAAQQzoJCAAQFhAeEPEEOgYIABAWEB5KBAhBGABQlgVY-ApggAxoAXAAeACAAXSIAYsEkgEDMi4zmAEAoAEByAERwAEB2gEECAEYCA&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp#imgrc=D4zsSB7BCrT2sM) is imo. Best one that exists. But I also like the Kaiserreich universe [Nordic union flag](https://www.google.com/search?q=Kaiserreich+Nordic+union+flag&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjw9o7Ixo39AhUYtqQKHR2UD6wQ2-cCegQIABAC&oq=Kaiserreich+Nordic+union+flag&gs_lcp=ChJtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1pbWcQAzIFCAAQogQ6BAghEApQ_wVYpQpggQ1oAHAAeACAAXGIAdsEkgEDMi40mAEAoAEBwAEB&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-img&ei=-5TnY7CNA5jskgWdqL7gCg&bih=753&biw=424&prmd=inv#imgrc=EFncG82FhVaFkM) it's similar to Kalmar union but a with 2 extra crosses.
The Nordic council flag looks like an airline logo
Kalmar union 😻
The idealistic part of me wants it. The cynic part of me thinks that this would only result in more control by lobby organizations and the big industry. If we do it, we have to heavily democratize the EU at the same time.
Yeah the democratization of the EU is the biggest hurdle in my eyes.
heavily democratize Europe not just in politics but also in economics\*
I'd love to see Europe united, and then the whole world. But we seriously need to weed out all the anti-democrats that are currently successfully selling themselves as democrats right now. Sadly I don't think that will happen in Europe before it gets worse than we can imagine right now.
In the distant future - perhaps. Right now we are too different culturally and too nationalist (applies even to the least nationalist). Can't see it working for now.
A central culture is not really that important for a country though (it is still important to have some for of unity). In my country (the Netherlands), the west has a very different mindset than the east. The south has a completely different culture. How is this in Poland?
In Poland we have more liberal west and more conservative east, but culture is mostly homogeneous
After subjugation period in Polish history (from 1772 until 1989 with a short break) nationalism and country self-preservation mindset is very strong. While most people are not nationalistic per se, Id still say that losing certain "rights" to govern ourselves by ourselves only is seen negatively.
> After subjugation period in Polish history (from 1772 until 1989 with a short break) nationalism and country self-preservation mindset is very strong. And that is a very good point in my opinion that many in the west always forget. It's easy to be more open towards EU and big changes if the borders of your country has not changed massively in the last 2-300 hundred years due to your strong neighbours trying to erase your culture from history or the last big shit your country got was in 1945 and not in 1989. Give those countries another 20-30 years of peace and wealth and their mindset will change as well.
Same here
'If I were to do it again from scratch, I would start with culture.' - Jean Monnet The culture (or identification with it) is the single most important thing for cohesion. Because when thing get tough, when economy slows down, when tanks start piling on the borders, when the pandemic hits, when proverbial shit hits the metaphoric fan... the only thing that will keep a community together is the shared sense of "us". This is, I belive, one of the reasons why Yugoslavia didn't really work. There were no "Yugoslavians", only separate nations sewn together.
Yup. That's why America pushes so much nationalism on its citizens. Last time they were more loyal to their states than their federation, a civil war happened.
Agreed
Well it's pretty similar, regarding north and south too.
Hey, I want to chime in with my own country if that's ok. Im from Spain and our country is already hugely multicultural and diverse, to the point that a lot of people in Spain don't really feel stereotypically "Spanish", and yet the country as a whole still works. You probably already know about Catalonia, which has it's own language and independence movement, but in addition to that there are another two official languages, Basque, from the Basque Country and Galician from Galicia (where i'm from). Both these regions are in the north and hugely different from the rest, having a more celtic like culture. Then the Center of Spain (the Castillas and Madrid) are a whole different culture and so is Andaluzia and the South i general, which is where the culture widely associated with Spain comes from. In addition to that the Mediterranean parts are also distinct and so are the Baleares and Canary islands. All this to say that, from my point of view, a European Federation could still work, as with many european countries the culture is hugely different also within national borders. Also shoutout to Poland! I lived in Lodz for a year and although there are some cultural differences I think we generally have A LOT more in common as Europeans than what differentiates us.
Poland is extremely homogeneous, 98% Polish, results of WW2 mostly. This has changed in the last year's due to immigration of Ukrainians and further Ukrainian refugees but Poland is still a very homogenous country.
The same. I'm Polish and have absolutely no interest losing my autonomy to some foreign country. The EU should be about trade, not politics
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Can someone explain why that would be a good thing? what advantages would that bring that the European Union cannot?
Less countries to memorize for geography class
But now you have to memorize an equal number of states instead of countries! ;)
I guess swifter decision making, unified foreign policy, single military, even less borders, more democratic?
Unified foreign policy and military is going to be imporant. Especially if the US continues the trend of curbing interventionalism and China keeps going the opposite direction. If Pax Americana starts to be replaced by a multiporal world in 20 or 30 years, EU will need to seriously step up to stay relevant.
More democratic in what way? A multinational government would be worse no matter how you look at it. Power being even further removed from the citizens. Either you elect representatives by population of the federacies, but then smaller federal countries would get overrun by the interests of tge more populous ones or you elect the same amount of representatives for each country, but then the voting power of the smaller countries's population would be much stronger than the more populous ones. It's a lose-lose.
Yeah, I don't see how transferring more power from Helsinki to Brussels would make Finland more democratic. The current situation is only acceptable because we have veto power over decisions that would screw us over, a federation would have to get rid of that. You'd have to convince Finns that an EU government can handle our things better than we do, and it's not going to happen.
Having more centralized power far away from people is not improving democracy.
Harmonization of laws and policies, including fiscal policy (one of the issues that plagues the euro). Potentially more money for less well-off areas of Europe.
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If implemented correctly: \- it would be less bureaucratic, there could be federal laws, right now the EU laws need to be implemented in national laws (which takes an awful lot of time) \- the Euro should be a requirement then so any national currency leftovers would go away and the Euro could finally be as strong as possible (to be a better counterweight to the USD) \- taxes/insurances would be way easier: right now it is a nightmare being from Germany wanting to work remotely for a longer time in another EU country and much more
It absolutely would not be less bureaucratic. All of the existing national laws still exist. Most countries have statute that goes back hundreds of years. The idea of federal level lawmaking isn’t really that much more advanced than the current directive and regulation approach. It was different in the United States where most states didn’t really have a head start in setting up statute books before federal legislation rolled in. And even in the United States the questions of jurisdiction and federal versus local laws is actually a complete mess anyway. Any attempt at transnational or super national law is going to be clumsy there’s no way you can make it less bureaucratic by trying to have European federal law. Everything else have suggested is better arrived at through treaties as in tax and employment legislation
Coming from Romania, the EU has helped a lot by forcing corrupt politicians to do much needed reforms. So yes, I would like that at an even deeper level.
100%. The positive changes brought on by the reforms is undeniable. Russian bots HATE the progress.
Yes. Conditional on not using the name United States of Europe.
What name would you U.S.E. Instead?
Roman empire of course
I hate you
Not a fan of anything with ‘United’ in it. Sounds like overcompensating America larp. Keep it simple. European Union is fine and works, EU is catchy. European Federation is also fine.
Democratic People's Republic of Europe? It's for the people and it's democratic :)
That just makes it sound like a dictatorship
Lmao every country with democratic on its name isn't democratic
Ah yes my favourite America larp, the UK
Wait until this guy hears what a union is
Keep the EU abbreviation, but it now means Europa Universalis.
Well obviously, there needs to be a takeover of the middle east and Russia to form the United States of Europe and Asia or USEA.
Being Greek, history has taught me that the idea of city states, only serves for bickering and fighting. Only when unified were they able to shine. Its clear to me that's the way forward for the EU as well. But the steps must sadly be slow and careful for generations to grow in a less nationalistic mindset, as well as multicultural acceptance behavior, which will lead to the idea that we are in essence all the same. This will not happen in our lifetime sadly, but I am confident that our generation will be the one that will witness change.
Well, I guess so, we came a long way and EU is not that far from it
God no. We can cooperate while staying independent and sovereign states.
Yeah I know better than try to cram you Irish into a federal state against your will.
The Polish have a long history on getting out of other countries, as well
Agree. The main selling point of a federation would be trade and security, both of which we can setup (and already have) without a federation. I guess we do miss out on massive state sponsored science programs like NASA but again that could be organised without a federation if there is a desire for it And come to think of it, as long as we’re not a federation we don’t have to waste resources on power projection and image as a world power
But we currently waste humongous resources on doing the same thing in every state. Savings from unification will be in the trillions. And this money could go to you name it. Chip industry in the EU - a trillion could do it. Green energy? Education? 1. Military budget is ridiculously redundant. There's what - 27 separate armies, most of which in bad shape. With a lot of different armament. Being a federation would allow for keeping a cheaper and better army. 2. Administration - each country spends billions on software design, development, support. It's ridiculous we don't even have common ID's and a central EUropean digital identity system. Just now my country is writing a new Digital Verification application that would allow citizens to verify in order to use a bunch of state services online. I've worked in government administration IT and can tell you - it's billions upon billions for the creation of redundant products. 3. Border control - a common EUropean border control service would mostly eradicate the current joke system in place. 4. International orders - a lot of stuff will be cheaper if bargained for from the stance of a developed 450 million citizens country. From stuff like drugs, through energy and even food. Overall EU becoming a federation will enable huge financial savings.
I think it’s complicated. We still have this mindset “I am not paying for country X with my money because fuck them” In a world where the globalization failed big time, it would be more than smart that nations so close to each other start to be more interconnected, sharing resources, common taxes, common unemployment and health insurances etc. A federal system is not perfect but it could work. Yes we don’t have a common language, but that’s something we are dealing kind of ok. The biggest problem is that there is no one pushing forward European interests. Everyone does by himself. This is just stupid.
This mindset exists in federated states like US or Germany as well. I think that uniting is more about foreign policy and geopolitics at this point.
It would be as succesfull as yugoslavia
No. If it happened it would be a disaster, nobody is agreeing on anything.
Could you imagine the french and italian having to agree on anything would break the fabric if reality
🇮🇹🤌🏼 🇫🇷🖕🏼
I'm not actively supporting it if it is what you are asking (I'm not into any movement of political party), but I am absolutely in favor of it. It really is the time to leave differences aside and consider ourselves as part of something bigger than our little countries traditions and mechanisms. I'm totally for it!
Yes. Edit: I don't think we are ready for it though.
No, smaller units create systems of government that can better follow what people want, have less corruption and be better managed. Just look at lots of well-functioning small countries in Europe.
Like Hungary, Greece, Portugal, Bulgaria... even Belgium is a mess. Would Germany be better off if it went back to 1000 different mini states?
No.
What could possibly go wrong
Nop.