European integration questions

[bhsup]

As an American looking at the process the nations of Europe are going through, I find it very fascinating and wonder if you all will grapple with some of the issues our forefathers dealt with as our nation was being forged.

Anyway, I'm just curious what you all think the future holds for Europe down the road. Will it become a strong federal "United States of Europe" type of nation? A weak confederation with very strong individual governments? Will, once integration is complete, a member nation be allowed to later secede if they wish or would such an act precipitate a civil war? Et cetera and so forth and yada yada with the questions....

By the way, I have no personal desire to see it go one way or the other, I'm just curious. Oh, and I wish you all the best in whichever course you take.

 

[SonicX]

I think the idea of a United European Nation is just an ideal the intellectual elite has, but deep down, every European know it can never be realized.
We've come a long way since 1945, especially now the borders of the EU have expanded into the former sphere of influence of the USSR in eastern Europe.

But the unification of Europe can never be completed, because Europe is not like the United States. Culturally we're too divided and some nations of Europe already have problems keeping different ethnicities united like Spain (Spain, Cataluñia, Basque), UK (Northern Ireland), Belgium (Flanders, Wallonia, Brussels) and Germany (25 % want to split again into east and west)

Probably it will continue to be a sloggish bureaucratic centre of confusion and inefficiency for some time to come as it has marvelously demonstrated with the whole "European constitution" issue and previously the strong divisions in the stance towards the war in Iraq. I can't really see how the UK and Germany/France will ever get to agree on issues like that and with the 10 new countries who politically speaking lean more to the UK/US than to the "Old Europe" that problem will only continue to grow.
The current agricultural crisis just adds to the bureaucratic mess the EU currently is as an institution, as every country is individualistically motivated : The Poles and French wants their large subsidies, the Dutch and the Germans want to pay less subsidies and the Brits want their rebate intact.
However, who would have thought 60 years ago that France and Germany would become the closest allies in Europe ? The future is uncertain.

What needs to be done in my opinion is to make a subdivision between the nation-state level and the European level ... a cultural unity level. So when something is discussed that will influence the whole of Europe, each cultural entity will make a united statements after deliberation with max. 6 nations and then those cultural entities are represented in Europe instead all the nations apart which are just too many parties to deal with (25 countries with 5 parties or so and lots of Eurosceptics)
If you'd make a sub-unit of Mediterrania (France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Greek Cyprus, Malta), Germania (Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg), Anglosaxonia (UK, Ireland), Scandinavia/Baltica (Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) and Slavia (Czech Rep, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia) and you first get all the nations in one subgroup to agree before letting the cultural entities take on the issue on a European scale, I think it would go a bit more fluently as there'd be less parties to deal with in a single vote ...
Maybe then you can work forward to a united Europe very slowly ... but it will require at least half a century.

There won't ever be a war in Europe again between European countries (except in the Balkans maybe or a civil war in Belarus), but unity is still out of our reach at the moment because the divisions are just too great. We don't have the luck the Americans do : a whole nation with one language, one culture, one offspring and one history.

 

[SonicX]

*mod* double

 

[kronic]

If you'd make a sub-unit of Mediterrania (France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Greek Cyprus, Malta), Germania (Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg), Anglosaxonia (UK, Ireland), Scandinavia/Baltica (Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) and Slavia (Czech Rep, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia) and you first get all the nations in one subgroup to agree before letting the cultural entities take on the issue on a European scale, I think it would go a bit more fluently as there'd be less parties to deal with in a single vote ...

Why not make a multi-speed EU instead?

 

[SonicX]

Because some would feel left behind and I think you'd get a process where some countries think they are the rightful leaders of Europe and others just feel like they're on the bandwagon once again. An equal treatment with multiple equal, lateral subgroups seems more warranted than a stratification of any kind.

 

[Che Guava]

I have to agree with SonicX here: the EU is less about true unification (at least in the nationalistic sense), and more about creating an economic community with common goals. It hyink it wil take quite awhile for the kinks to be worked out in the beauracracy, but it seems like most European nations are committed to long-term success.

And now a question for Sonic: why do you think europe should be divided on cultural lines? I suppose it would be easier like that, but I always thought that the EU would create its own blocs more organically: members with similar goals would vote the same, develop closer diplomatic ties, and work to improve thier collective standing. I'm not sure I understand why there would be a need to create artificial boundaries and groups.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

If you'd make a sub-unit of Mediterrania (France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Greek Cyprus, Malta), Germania (Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg), Anglosaxonia (UK, Ireland), Scandinavia/Baltica (Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) and Slavia (Czech Rep, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia) and you first get all the nations in one subgroup to agree before letting the cultural entities take on the issue on a European scale, I think it would go a bit more fluently as there'd be less parties to deal with in a single vote ...
Maybe then you can work forward to a united Europe very slowly ... but it will require at least half a century.

I don´t think these sub-units make much sense. We need a working constitution with qualified majorities. Furthermore the political interests differ according to the specific issue not according to the "cultural group". Furthermore these entities you propose have no cultural homogenity anyhow (Hungary is not slavic and Austria would imo fit more together with the small middle European countries, ect)

 

[kronic]

Because some would feel left behind and I think you'd get a process where some countries think they are the rightful leaders of Europe and others just feel like they're on the bandwagon once again. An equal treatment with multiple equal, lateral subgroups seems more warranted than a stratification of any kind.

That pretty much depends on your view of the integration process. Everybody knows that a political union with 25+ members is bascially impossible. The interests and cultrues of the nations just differ to much. But there are certainly some nations who would like to deepen the relations. Who has the right to deny them that?

 

[SonicX]

And now a question for Sonic: why do you think europe should be divided on cultural lines? I suppose it would be easier like that, but I always thought that the EU would create its own blocs more organically: members with similar goals would vote the same, develop closer diplomatic ties, and work to improve thier collective standing. I'm not sure I understand why there would be a need to create artificial boundaries and groups.

It doesn't seem like division of Europe to me, more like a semi-unification of the culturally tied countries. Whether Austria/Hungary/Slovenia should be another group doesn't really matter for the point I'm trying to make.
I don't mean that I want to create divisions in Europe, actually I'd rather see some more smaller-scale unification ... all at once just seems quite dangerous, it's safer to drink a pint bit by bit than ad fundum, no ?

 

[Che Guava]

... all at once just seems quite dangerous, it's safer to drink a pint bit by bit than ad fundum, no ?

That's interesting, I would be concerned about the opposite effect: grouping countries together by culture seems like a recipe to fuel any kind of ethnic mistrust that still exists on the continent. One of the great acheivements of the EU is bringing together former enemies (like France and Germany) to common goals.

What I mean to say is that if the EU did get partitionned into cultural groups, any decision made in Brussels would be interpreted as a comment on each cultural group by the citizens of those groups. A tarriff or subsidy could be viewed by some as a racial attack by the rest of europe, and soon we'd have a movement of extreme, nationalistic, possibly authoritarian, parties across the continent.

 

[Marla_Singer]

The European continent is doomed.

 

[kronic]

I like your recent pessimism.

 

[AceChilla]

The European continent is doomed.

I agree, still interesting to watch it slip down in the abiss though.

 

[Winner]

The European continent is doomed.

Well, if you're right, we must ensure the world won't outlive us

 

[Winner]

As an American looking at the process the nations of Europe are going through, I find it very fascinating and wonder if you all will grapple with some of the issues our forefathers dealt with as our nation was being forged.

Well, the Europeans have always known something has to be done about that silly divisions. We've just never agreed on what it should be.

Anyway, I'm just curious what you all think the future holds for Europe down the road. Will it become a strong federal "United States of Europe" type of nation? A weak confederation with very strong individual governments?

Honestly, I don't have a slightest idea. I guess it could be a loose federation with strong national governments. The real guestion is whether will the foreign and defence policies be handed over to EU or not.

Will, once integration is complete, a member nation be allowed to later secede if they wish or would such an act precipitate a civil war? Et cetera and so forth and yada yada with the questions....

Nah, we had enough wars in the past.

 

[Paalikles]

Depends on your perspective:

Realists hold states as key actors, and national interest as the guideline - thus giving up sovereignity (spelling?) is not preferable

Liberals believe in cooperation, and object less to integration.

The process currently known as globalization, with increasing interdependence between countries, may work in the direction of increased integration...


Blablabla....