Politics - Is the EU becoming a federal state?

Question

I have to do an essay for my a level politics - the question is: is the eu drifting towards a federal superstate?

if anyone has any examples, ideas or help to offer they would be VERY appreciated!

Answer 1

If so, it sounds like the first part of an apocalyptic prophecy!

Answer 2

No. There are those in the EU who would love this to happen, but there are too many differences between the people of Europe to allow this to happen.

The Dutch hate the Germans, the Belgians hate the Dutch, the British hate the Germans and of course, everyone hates the French. And now with EU expansion, there are even more nationalities to not get on.

In additon, there are too many different systems. For example, the German health care system is one of the best in the world, but wastes too much money (though not as much as the US system does). The UK system is more efficient, but while very good, is not as good as that seen in Germany. Merging these different systems in healthcare alone would cause too many problems.

So no, the EU is not going to become an United States of Europe.

Answer 3

Federal Europe is a speculative scenario where a politically united Europe, usually in the modern context of the European Union (EU), would acquire the full features of a federation. Currenty there are no plans for the EU to declare federal status, although some see it as what would be the final step of European integration.

The European Union is the most recent, and the only 'attempt' to unite Europe which is based on factual democracy and voluntary enlargement. Its member states have throughout fifty years been intergovernmentally pooling powers, harmonised national policies and created supranational institutions. How far this integration should go, and whether or not federalism is desirable, is subject to much debate.

Although often limited to certain fields of policy, the current nation-like features of the EU include the European Parliament, a common civil service (the European Commission), a single Foreign Representative, a common Security and Defence Policy, a supranational court (European Court of Justice) and a record of deploying many peacekeeping forces. Most of the Union also has open internal borders and the euro is adopted by most EU countries as a shared single currency.

The rule of law is fundamental in the EU. The Court of Justice has ensured that the law of the European Community, which is the heart of the EU, is observed. The result has been a shift from power-based to law-based relations between the several states, across the broad range of Community competences: a major contribution to making war between them unthinkable.

The rule of law is fundamental in the EU



The legislature of the EU, like that of a federation, comprises a house of the states and a house of the citizens, responsible for enacting the laws and controlling the Commission. The directly elected European Parliament is halfway towards having the powers of a federal house of the citizens: it co-decides, with the Council of Ministers, over half of the legislation and the budget; and it was the Parliament, not the Council, that used its powers to secure the resignation of the Commission in March 1999. But instead of conveying a clear message to the citizens that laws are enacted and the budget approved by both the Parliament and the Council, the system is a maze of complicated procedures; and instead of explaining to the public the importance of the Parliament to European democracy, political leaders tend to disparage or ignore it.

The federal elements in the EU institutions have enabled them to function to the benefit of the states and citizens



The Council of Ministers is closer to having the powers of a federal house of the states, but, unlike any democratic legislature, it enacts the legislation behind closed doors and is still distinguished by the fairly extensive scope for the veto. It also retains executive powers not proper to a legislature, without being accountable to any other institution for that part of its work: a concentration of legislative and executive powers that flouts the principles of liberal democracy.

The Council's executive powers impair the Commission's ability to ensure the execution of the EU's laws, which it has shown itself well able to do in a field such as competition policy, where it has been given full responsibility. It has many attributes of a federal executive, but will not be fully effective unless it is given such powers across the board, subject to accountability to the legislature.

The federal elements in the EU institutions have enabled them to function to the benefit of the states and citizens. But if their interests are to be adequately served by a Union that will be enlarged to include 30 states or more, these federal elements will have to be strengthened.

The EC and its federal competences

If "closer integration" means more effective and democratic institutions, we need it. But if it refers to further powers in the Union's main fields of activity, which are the economy and the environment, not much more is required. 80% of the new laws aapplicable to a country - some 90,000 pages of legislation, are now defined in Brussels.

The single currency gives the Union the potential to balance the US in the world financial system, the fall in the $ makes the Euro look good.... The single market provides the framework for a modern market economy, and the external trade policy has made the Union an equal partner of the US in the world trade system. The single currency, though weakened by Britain's opt-out, goes far to complete the single market and gives the Union the potential to balance the US in the world financial system. The modest budget finances the Union as it stands at present, though more may be needed to respond to enlargement and growing external responsibilities. Over 200 laws deal with the cross-border problems of environmental pollution and the Union plays a leading part in international negotiations on global warming. So it has the potential to deal with the common interests of its states and citizens in these fields.

Where the states can manage their own affairs effectively, the EU has no business to intervene - important point!

The other main field in which the member states lack the capacity for effective separate action is defence, where big responsibilities would be a competence too far for the Union, at least for now. NATO functions because of American hegemonic leadership, but there is no such hegemony among the European states. They can operate on a modest scale with instruments such as the Rapid Reaction Force. But they could give the Union major responsibility for defence only when it has developed solid and tested democratic institutions. Until such time, it can become a federal polity, but not a federal state.

Where the states can manage their own affairs effectively, the EU has no business to intervene. Central to this area is the welfare state, where the Union has generally not sought to interfere, though it has been given some minor powers in education, public health, and cultural affairs that should be returned to the states.

Thus a federal EU would not require much by way of additional competences, save in the field of external security, where its responsibilities could be developed by stages over a substantial period.

The alternative to a federal Europe, capable of acting on behalf of its states and citizens, is dependence on America, insofar as we are lucky, and on impersonal or less benign external forces, insofar as we are not - though we British have the option of dependence on a federal Europe if our neighbours succeed in federating without us.

Domination by a single superpower, even by a democracy (in theory) such as the US, creates a highly unstable world, good neither for the Americans nor for the rest of us; and it will be followed by a yet more unstable bipolarity between the US and China, unless a partnership between the US and a federal Europe is developed first, strong enough to underpin global institutions as the basis for a stable world order.

Tony Blair's call for the EU to become "a superpower but not a superstate" is less fanciful than it may sound. The EU, with its quasi-federal arrangements for external trade, is already as great a trading power as the US. The euro gives it the potential for a similar role in the international monetary system, as it also has in the field of the environment. In defence the US will long remain supreme, though the EU can perform an increasingly important complementary role. But the Union can be an effective superpower in most other respects, provided that the federal elements in its institutions are strengthened.

In defence the US will long remain supreme, though the EU can perform an increasingly important complementary role

The inter-governmentalist approach, treating the European Parliament and the Court of Justice as spare wheels and the Commission as a secretariat for an all-powerful Council of Ministers, cannot deliver an EU with the necessary stability and strength. Its advocates may believe themselves to be realists. But how can it be realistic to suppose that a hydra-headed collection of representatives of governments of up to 30 or more states can properly manage the Union's affairs? The democratic political systems of all those states will be centrifugal forces, pulling the Union apart at difficult moments in national or Union affairs, unless the Union itself is also endowed with a democratic system that can attract the citizens' support, alongside the commitment to their state.

The horse-trading in Brussels in the European Parliament is insufficiently accountable and effective to serve the interests of the citizens, its members too aloof, its rules too open to abuse...and filled by failed home politicians, the B teams...

It is illusory to suppose that all those representatives of democratically elected states' governments can themselves provide a transparent, democratic and effective political system by horse-trading in Brussels. That, not the Union's federal elements, is the "Brussels" which is insufficiently accountable and effective to serve the interests of European citizens in the way they should be served. The Union, with the federal elements it has already been given, has done far more for them than a purely inter-governmental system could have done. But it remains liable to stagnate or disintegrate unless it is made properly democratic and effective.

The key reforms are:

- to give the European Parliament the right to co-decide all the laws and the budget, instead of just half of them;

- to give the Commission adequate executive and policing power, with full accountability to the Parliament and Council;

and

- to make the Council a more normal house of the states, holding its legislative sessions in public, generally voting by weighte

Answer 4

Christab: let me wonder why you are top contributor in this category.

First, your list of cliches is somehow very outdated.

Secondly, health care coverage is also not the same in every US state as a federal level does not equal to a centralized system.

Thirdly, the EU has for example a more unified business law that the US. But again, this is a choice between states and the European parliament.

The EU is slowly shifting from a self-generating supranational structure to a federal state. Early signs of this is the growing role of the EU basic law and the declining number of legislative fields left to the member states.