EU must federalize under a new constitution first. Unless state and federal rights are black on white we’re stuck with the limits of international law.
What’s the point of being a superpower?
Imho, the EU should become a federation.
^(Like Switzerland ;))
Good luck getting a unanimous decision to remove unanimity…
That will only happen if and when each and every one of the member states decides that a federal EU will work in their interests and not just those of the “core members”. Nobody wants to become a “flyover state”. And so in order to work towards federalization, the EU needs to build a system whereby there are no “peripheral” members and that any European Federation will live by a strict “no man left behind” policy. Romania, for example, needs to be economically equivalent to Germany. Otherwise we become the USA with rural red states resenting the urban blue states, and we should be trying to avoid that.
I don’t foresee this happening any time soon, but economically uplifting Eastern and Southern Europe will help us toward this goal eventually.
The EU first needs to invest in community-building, which will require a lot of time. Non-majoritarian institutions are already involved in a wide set of policy areas, which provokes a sense of bewilderment in some people that identify exclusively with one identity (the national one). If we move from unanimity to QMV, this would only increase their sense of alienation, thus making populist parties surge in national elections. The solution is investing in projects that make European peoples realize how similar they are.
Yeah, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth is a stark warning from history how unanimity is too easy to game by adversaries leveraging the weakest/cheapest link (hello Orban).
Qualified majority voting is probably a nice middle ground between unanimity and not having centralised decisions imposed too much on countries.
So long as countries are still free to make independent decisions – like Lithuania recognizing Taiwan – in the absence of an EU resolution.
Yeah I mean tiny members (like Malta and S.Cyprus) can veto EU stuff with less than 0.2% of the population. That doesn’t make sense.
What’s so good about being a superpower? The whole “EU should become a federation” is imperialistic.
Idiots fantasizing about their long gone empires, more news at 11.
Why compromise with allies when you can railroad over them and create a tyranny of the majority that will surely keep europe held together…
Well first we Europeans have to decide what it is that we want. Do we want Europe to be a super power? If we don’t then we have to accept that we’ll be the playthings of more powerful and united entities, and move on. We have to accept being under either the American or Russian or Chinese aegis and not complain. If we do want to then we have to make the necessary sacrifices, and I doubt anyone is ready for that. For the difference between an Irish and a Greek , a Fin and a Spaniard, are so vast that the two will likely never consider themselves part of the same culture. And make no mistake, it is shared culture and language that lead to unification.
There is one thing that we can do that may be a first step. Teach everyone English as the official second language. That would mean passing a law in Italy (for example), like in Albania, that kids would have to begin learning English as soon as their schooling starts. Enough with the dubbing of films and media too. If we get an entire generation of schoolchildren to be surrounded by English it would have enormous ramifications down the road, and at last someone born in Norway can begin to see the world like someone from Bulgaria and vice versa. But I live in fantasy land.
If some countries want to integrate even more and even set federalization as a distant goal that’s fine, just don’t bring my country into it. We already have institutions in the EU such as the eurozone which not every country is a member of or needs to be.
Countries who want to integrate even deeper in terms of foreign policy and defense can do so without the rest of us who want our partnership in the EU be mainly economical.
European countries must be trustful. Germany isn’t good at building trust.
The weirdos who actually want Europe to unite under some kind of Empire aren’t thinking straight. Why? Because you want to be united under the EU. Simply put: the fat unimpressive and fugly nerds in Brussels aren’t gonna get shit done. Never have, never will, these cretins are the lowest of the low.
We need impressive leaders and that’s all I’m asking.
I think that the EU needs first to work out a solution to align diverging interests. Even if the EU federalizes, and people are unhappy with the outcome the project may fall apart.
The unanimous vote is a crude way of ensuring nobody gets steamrolled.
Note that the countries that are against unanimous vote stand to benefit from majority vote and vice versa. This alone is a problem.
We need a way of converging on diverging interests. One way would be to bake in a way of compensation of trade offs. Without that a federation is not going to happen.
Does the EU want to be a “superpower”? Is that a good thing for the EU, or the world?
Haven’t we had enough nationalism/jingoism over the last century or so? Do we really want the EU to be the new bully in the room? The whole benefit of the EU is that it pushes nations into compromise and cooperation, through inter-dependence. Remove that, and the EU has the potential just to become the vehicle for the larger nations’ foreign policy.
I’d considering myself strongly pro-EU, but the more I read/hear from Macron, the less trust I have in the concept of a common foreign policy or EU defence force. Papering over the cracks between nations doesn’t make the disagreements go away, it’s just ignoring dissent rather than constructively tackling it.
Superpower? It’s hard enough just to maintain a high standard of living in a world of rising competing economic blocks.
Europe’s bigger challenge is looking after it’s aging population.
What about no
Federalizing should happen eventually imo.
BUT.
It’s not something you can force on populations.
This seems like a far future project to me. Talking at leasy 50+ years.
Eh, lets leave that potential locked up for the minute
It would only cause trouble
“Seems suspiciously like something Germany would say” -greece probably
Sign that right away,
And the EU will be dominated by the few larger states that have the most influence.
Hell partially this happens even now to a small degree. But now countries still manage to veto at times regardless of the consequences of going against the big european countries.
I have zero trust in them acting on behalf of my country when they have demonstrated many times in the past that they will not act in the interests of my country but in the interests of their own.
Besides, i dont want EU measures that have to do with internal politics like some social policies to be pushed to countries and peoples that migjt not want them. Its already a mess now. This would make the problem worse.
The only way to remove unanimity is to have clear cases where it wont apply that everyone agrees on, (like for example when it comes to some foreign policy aspects at first? Idk), give veto power only to the countries whose populations are directly affected by the result of the vote (whats the point of voting to do something in country X if country X doesnt want to)
And generally the EU needs many reforms.
It should back away from trying to get a uniform internal social policy which has alienated the east and focus on the things that matter for all like common economic growth, security and foreign policy.
Yeah I am sure the small- medium states can’t wait to be pressured even more by Germany to do their bidding.
fuck off
No thanks. If I wanted Europe to be the USA I would just move there. The EU should just do well it’s mandate and stop demanding more powers.
Ending the veto is a wetdream for the poorer European countries so they can transfer more wealth from the north to the south and east.
Yeah, that’s a no from us.
Sometimes I wonder if these kind of articles are written by Russian trolls trying to destabilize the EU. I just can’t grasp who I’m their sane mind would think European countries, except maybe the most hardcore pro-federalization ones further south, want this to happen. Just seriously talking about it would be enough for anti-EU sentiment to grow.
The big boys (France, Germany) are already de-facto rulers of this union, the unanimity thing is what still keeps them somehow in check.
The last time the unanimity card was played for real was in late 2011-early 2012 when the UK vetoed the “structured deficit”-programme the Germans and the Nordics wanted to impose (i.e. the infamous austerity plan). Of course that the Germans, caring a lot about the spirit of the law, chose to sign up a separate “international treaty” with the remaining EU countries (i.e. all of the other EU members, excluding the UK) which, for all intents and purposes, was still an EU treaty.
But this article being written by a guy who is *Jean Monnet Chair at the University of Rome* of course that he is hungry for even more power for this supra-national entity.
I mean I’ve said this for years… Europe needs to consolidate. Being a small country is pointless now days and Europe is much better together as a collective IMO.
Shame my country left… The UK has always had a weird position on the world stage though.
I see people talking about a European Federation, how would that work exactly?
The republics that conformed the USSR and Yugoslavia had more in common with each other than most European Union countries yet they still collapsed. Quite spectacularly in the case of Yugoslavia.
Forget about superpower. Scrapping unanimity is needed for the most basic thing: making a decision at some point, which can’t be done most of the times, if you need to convince 27 members out of 27.
35 comments
EU must federalize under a new constitution first. Unless state and federal rights are black on white we’re stuck with the limits of international law.
What’s the point of being a superpower?
Imho, the EU should become a federation.
^(Like Switzerland ;))
Good luck getting a unanimous decision to remove unanimity…
That will only happen if and when each and every one of the member states decides that a federal EU will work in their interests and not just those of the “core members”. Nobody wants to become a “flyover state”. And so in order to work towards federalization, the EU needs to build a system whereby there are no “peripheral” members and that any European Federation will live by a strict “no man left behind” policy. Romania, for example, needs to be economically equivalent to Germany. Otherwise we become the USA with rural red states resenting the urban blue states, and we should be trying to avoid that.
I don’t foresee this happening any time soon, but economically uplifting Eastern and Southern Europe will help us toward this goal eventually.
The EU first needs to invest in community-building, which will require a lot of time. Non-majoritarian institutions are already involved in a wide set of policy areas, which provokes a sense of bewilderment in some people that identify exclusively with one identity (the national one). If we move from unanimity to QMV, this would only increase their sense of alienation, thus making populist parties surge in national elections. The solution is investing in projects that make European peoples realize how similar they are.
Yeah, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth is a stark warning from history how unanimity is too easy to game by adversaries leveraging the weakest/cheapest link (hello Orban).
Qualified majority voting is probably a nice middle ground between unanimity and not having centralised decisions imposed too much on countries.
So long as countries are still free to make independent decisions – like Lithuania recognizing Taiwan – in the absence of an EU resolution.
Yeah I mean tiny members (like Malta and S.Cyprus) can veto EU stuff with less than 0.2% of the population. That doesn’t make sense.
What’s so good about being a superpower? The whole “EU should become a federation” is imperialistic.
Idiots fantasizing about their long gone empires, more news at 11.
Why compromise with allies when you can railroad over them and create a tyranny of the majority that will surely keep europe held together…
Well first we Europeans have to decide what it is that we want. Do we want Europe to be a super power? If we don’t then we have to accept that we’ll be the playthings of more powerful and united entities, and move on. We have to accept being under either the American or Russian or Chinese aegis and not complain. If we do want to then we have to make the necessary sacrifices, and I doubt anyone is ready for that. For the difference between an Irish and a Greek , a Fin and a Spaniard, are so vast that the two will likely never consider themselves part of the same culture. And make no mistake, it is shared culture and language that lead to unification.
There is one thing that we can do that may be a first step. Teach everyone English as the official second language. That would mean passing a law in Italy (for example), like in Albania, that kids would have to begin learning English as soon as their schooling starts. Enough with the dubbing of films and media too. If we get an entire generation of schoolchildren to be surrounded by English it would have enormous ramifications down the road, and at last someone born in Norway can begin to see the world like someone from Bulgaria and vice versa. But I live in fantasy land.
.
How about [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/san0ub/what_lies_in_the_way_of_north_macedonias_eu/htviwun) instead?
We should the EU be a superpower?
Being a superpower becomes an end in itself.
If some countries want to integrate even more and even set federalization as a distant goal that’s fine, just don’t bring my country into it. We already have institutions in the EU such as the eurozone which not every country is a member of or needs to be.
Countries who want to integrate even deeper in terms of foreign policy and defense can do so without the rest of us who want our partnership in the EU be mainly economical.
European countries must be trustful. Germany isn’t good at building trust.
The weirdos who actually want Europe to unite under some kind of Empire aren’t thinking straight. Why? Because you want to be united under the EU. Simply put: the fat unimpressive and fugly nerds in Brussels aren’t gonna get shit done. Never have, never will, these cretins are the lowest of the low.
We need impressive leaders and that’s all I’m asking.
I think that the EU needs first to work out a solution to align diverging interests. Even if the EU federalizes, and people are unhappy with the outcome the project may fall apart.
The unanimous vote is a crude way of ensuring nobody gets steamrolled.
Note that the countries that are against unanimous vote stand to benefit from majority vote and vice versa. This alone is a problem.
We need a way of converging on diverging interests. One way would be to bake in a way of compensation of trade offs. Without that a federation is not going to happen.
Does the EU want to be a “superpower”? Is that a good thing for the EU, or the world?
Haven’t we had enough nationalism/jingoism over the last century or so? Do we really want the EU to be the new bully in the room? The whole benefit of the EU is that it pushes nations into compromise and cooperation, through inter-dependence. Remove that, and the EU has the potential just to become the vehicle for the larger nations’ foreign policy.
I’d considering myself strongly pro-EU, but the more I read/hear from Macron, the less trust I have in the concept of a common foreign policy or EU defence force. Papering over the cracks between nations doesn’t make the disagreements go away, it’s just ignoring dissent rather than constructively tackling it.
Superpower? It’s hard enough just to maintain a high standard of living in a world of rising competing economic blocks.
Europe’s bigger challenge is looking after it’s aging population.
What about no
Federalizing should happen eventually imo.
BUT.
It’s not something you can force on populations.
This seems like a far future project to me. Talking at leasy 50+ years.
Eh, lets leave that potential locked up for the minute
It would only cause trouble
“Seems suspiciously like something Germany would say” -greece probably
Sign that right away,
And the EU will be dominated by the few larger states that have the most influence.
Hell partially this happens even now to a small degree. But now countries still manage to veto at times regardless of the consequences of going against the big european countries.
I have zero trust in them acting on behalf of my country when they have demonstrated many times in the past that they will not act in the interests of my country but in the interests of their own.
Besides, i dont want EU measures that have to do with internal politics like some social policies to be pushed to countries and peoples that migjt not want them. Its already a mess now. This would make the problem worse.
The only way to remove unanimity is to have clear cases where it wont apply that everyone agrees on, (like for example when it comes to some foreign policy aspects at first? Idk), give veto power only to the countries whose populations are directly affected by the result of the vote (whats the point of voting to do something in country X if country X doesnt want to)
And generally the EU needs many reforms.
It should back away from trying to get a uniform internal social policy which has alienated the east and focus on the things that matter for all like common economic growth, security and foreign policy.
Yeah I am sure the small- medium states can’t wait to be pressured even more by Germany to do their bidding.
fuck off
No thanks. If I wanted Europe to be the USA I would just move there. The EU should just do well it’s mandate and stop demanding more powers.
Ending the veto is a wetdream for the poorer European countries so they can transfer more wealth from the north to the south and east.
Yeah, that’s a no from us.
Sometimes I wonder if these kind of articles are written by Russian trolls trying to destabilize the EU. I just can’t grasp who I’m their sane mind would think European countries, except maybe the most hardcore pro-federalization ones further south, want this to happen. Just seriously talking about it would be enough for anti-EU sentiment to grow.
The big boys (France, Germany) are already de-facto rulers of this union, the unanimity thing is what still keeps them somehow in check.
The last time the unanimity card was played for real was in late 2011-early 2012 when the UK vetoed the “structured deficit”-programme the Germans and the Nordics wanted to impose (i.e. the infamous austerity plan). Of course that the Germans, caring a lot about the spirit of the law, chose to sign up a separate “international treaty” with the remaining EU countries (i.e. all of the other EU members, excluding the UK) which, for all intents and purposes, was still an EU treaty.
But this article being written by a guy who is *Jean Monnet Chair at the University of Rome* of course that he is hungry for even more power for this supra-national entity.
I mean I’ve said this for years… Europe needs to consolidate. Being a small country is pointless now days and Europe is much better together as a collective IMO.
Shame my country left… The UK has always had a weird position on the world stage though.
I see people talking about a European Federation, how would that work exactly?
The republics that conformed the USSR and Yugoslavia had more in common with each other than most European Union countries yet they still collapsed. Quite spectacularly in the case of Yugoslavia.
Forget about superpower. Scrapping unanimity is needed for the most basic thing: making a decision at some point, which can’t be done most of the times, if you need to convince 27 members out of 27.