No, not anytime soon. Better questions, should there be? Nope, not now.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m an American and have a soft spot in my heart for federations. Also a Star Trek fan so I am very fond of federations. I just can’t see Europe as ready for one – yet.
Europe has way too many things pulling it apart now. There’s both an east/west and a north/south divide. There’s a massive wealth gap. There are major systems issues because not all parliaments are the same – heck, none of them are. Geopolitical differences in interests, political divides along ideologies, so many competing systems already connecting them that disentangling is going to be more work than setting up a federal government – Europe is a bit of a basket case at the moment.
Just at a glance, that list isn’t so bad. There will never be a perfect time and Europe is going to have to sort all of that out anyway. The quantity of difficulties isn’t the issue; it’s the quality. A lot of those divided are fairly deep, even if Europeans haven’t come to that realization yet. For all the talk of ‘shared values’ Europe’s political spectrum is still more of a flat line than a healthy bell curve. Europe is better than it was forty years ago but only on the surface.
It’s tough to put together international systems and alliances when you are walking on very thin eggshells so let’s give Europe some credit here. World War II devastated Europe. Trying to figure out how to live together in something resembling peace without starting yet another war wasn’t even slightly easy. They did pretty good, all things considered.
Problem is, that process is far from over. A lot of issues were ignored, shouted down or papered over rather than being sorted out over the years. Those cans can only be kicked so far down the road before they will have to be dealt with and that has to happen before Europe has any hope of a peaceful, meaningful unification under any system.
Least of all a federal one. Concentrating power in a central government is a dangerous thing that has to be very carefully balanced so that NO tyrannies develop. No, the US did not get it perfect – we’re doing Round Two of Trust Busting now for that very reason. Colonies aren’t nation-states and aren’t nearly as prickly when you try to convince them to accede some of their newfound powers.
Students of American History will note that process didn’t go well at all. Eleven years under the Articles of Confederation wasn’t enough; members of the Continental Congress hid what they were working on all that long, hot, no AC summer. It’s amazing the delegates didn’t kill each other and that they weren’t shot when they got home with this new Constitution thing.
Colonies turned states are about as much fun to corral as a whole passel of REALLY PO’d cats. When those cats are nation-states they become even more PO’d tigers. Dear Europe, this will not go well. Good luck, and don’t shoot each other!
Y’all just think I’m kidding. Federal governments are not for the faint of heart and convincing full nation-states to surrender their sovereignty? Um, I’ll be on the other side of the planet while y’all try that…
Part of the problem that I see is Europe is in a political shift. These pendulum swings are normal in American politics but they are even longer and less evident normally in European politics. That being a flat line thing makes it harder to see the swing. While Europe does have such swings, occasionally significant ones, they don’t have big, obvious patterns like the US – until now.
You could argue that Europe has already become a (very) loose confederation. There’s some truth to that. That gain of unity is my best guess for why we’re now seeing a pretty strong shift in European polity. Strong by European standards, but still good sized even by American expectations, there is definitely a rightward, conservative movement and no, I don’t just mean Brexit and Orban.
France and the Netherlands, the bastions of European leftism, are both having electoral shifts and even massive protests. Turns out that when you ignore large segments of your population as if they don’t matter, it will come back to bite. Who’da thunk?
That’s the biggest obstacle for a European Federation. The political left wants it in order to concentrate power. The political right is tired of being run roughshod over. Yes, I am over simplifying – you want a dissertation, there will be a salary negotiation first. But the general problem is that the right side of what passes for the European spectrum is gaining power and scaring the daylights out of the left side.
Forget all the hype – they just don’t want to lose power. Which makes a federation very attractive to the left presently as they try to maintain their hold on power. This will not go well but it also won’t go down in flames – probably.
It really doesn’t matter how much of either argument is correct. The rural and the conservative feel oppressed and are fighting back. The urban and the liberal feel insecure and are fighting back. While there will never be a perfect time to create a federation, this is one of the times where the interests – not just conservative v liberal – are too far apart to succeed.
I’m not particularly hopeful about the EU’s long term prospects. The EU has way too much power concentrated in way too few institutions. We’ve more than proven that modernity isn’t going to save mankind from his nature but Europe decided to do their part and added the EU to the proofs. Will it survive? As is? Almost certainly not. At all? Maybe, depends on way too many variables to guess at yet.
Europe has got to come to grips with this whole freedom thing. They are still a bit skittish about the chaotic nature of letting individuals make big decisions. Europe likes security. It’s not as addicted as Russia but it also hasn’t learned to drink responsibly yet. We’ve seen all sorts of repressive measures in Europe over the last two decades, all nicely dressed up as ‘in the public good’. That is just the binge talking.
It’s not a quick, easy process. That is what Europe wants desperately. A nice, one size fits all solution and not all that messy sorting out of rights and liberties and stuff. Europe tried it in their sad rejection of all things nationalistic. Instead of recognizing the excesses, they jumped to the opposite extreme. If nationalism could be bad, then all nationalism was bad. Trouble is, self hate is the inevitable result and you can’t build on that.
Europe isn’t ready yet for the hard discussions. But there are hopeful signs. I firmly believe Europe will come around. I even suspect it will someday unify. Maybe – and I do mean maybe – by 2050 we’ll see a loose confederation of European nations develop. probably very similar to the US’ Articles of Confederation. A loose confederation will let them try on a unified government and kick the tires a bit without the overbearing compulsions we keep seeing from the various EU institutions.
That just might give Europe as a whole the confidence to craft a unification government that they can control and feel safe with. But there are a lot of things Europe as a group and the individual nation-states have got to sort out first. The Twentieth Century did a lot of damage that they haven’t really done a lot to fix yet. Give them time, they can get there.
As long as there is where they all want to go.
