Federal Europe
A federal Europe, also referred to as the United States of Europe or a European federation, is a hypothetical scenario of European integration leading to the formation of a sovereign superstate, organised as a federation of the member countries of the European Union, as contemplated by political scientists, politicians, geographers, historians, futurologists and fiction writers. At present, while the EU is not officially a federation or even a confederation, most contemporary scholars of federalism view the EU as a federal system, a supranational union, which has a flexible membership and competence delegation.
It is to be differentiated from a fused European State, or the concept of a European Republic, equalizing European regions, past the member states, as advocated by Ulrike Guérot.
History
Various versions of the concept have developed over the centuries, many of which are mutually incompatible. Such proposals include those from Bohemian King George of Poděbrady in 1464; Duc de Sully of France in the seventeenth century; and the plan of William Penn, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, for the establishment of a "European Dyet, Parliament or Estates". George Washington also allegedly voiced support for a "United States of Europe", although the authenticity of this statement has been questioned.19th century
notes how during a conversation on St. Helena, Napoleon Bonaparte remarked: "Europe thus divided into nationalities freely formed and free internally, peace between States would have become easier: the United States of Europe would become a possibility". "United States of Europe" was also the name of the concept presented by Wojciech Jastrzębowski in About eternal peace between the nations, published 31 May 1831. The project consisted of 77 articles. The envisioned United States of Europe was to be an international organisation rather than a superstate. Giuseppe Mazzini, an early advocate of a "United States of Europe" regarded European unification as a logical continuation of the unification of Italy. Mazzini created the Young Europe movement.The term "United States of Europe" was used by Victor Hugo, including during a speech at the International Peace Congress held in Paris in 1849. Hugo favoured the creation of "a supreme, sovereign senate, which will be to Europe what parliament is to England" and said: "A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood... A day will come when we shall see... the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas". During his exile from France, Hugo planted a tree in the grounds of his residence on the Island of Guernsey and was noted in saying that when this tree matured the United States of Europe would have come into being. This tree to this day is still growing in the gardens of Maison de Hauteville, St. Peter Port, Guernsey.
In 1867, Giuseppe Garibaldi and John Stuart Mill joined Victor Hugo at the first congress of the League of Peace and Freedom in Geneva. Here the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin stated: "That in order to achieve the triumph of liberty, justice and peace in the international relations of Europe, and to render civil war impossible among the various peoples who make up the European family, only a single course lies open: to constitute the United States of Europe".
Early 20th century
Before the communist revolution in Russia, Leon Trotsky foresaw a "Federated Republic of Europe — the United States of Europe", created by the proletariat. Following the First World War, some thinkers and visionaries again began to float the idea of a politically unified Europe. A Pan-European movement gained some momentum from the 1920s with the creation of the Paneuropean Union, based on Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi's 1923 manifesto Paneuropa, which presented the idea of a unified European State. This movement, led by Coudenhove-Kalergi and subsequently by Otto von Habsburg, is the oldest European unification movement. In 1923, the Austrian Count Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi founded the Pan-Europa Movement and hosted the First Paneuropean Congress, held in Vienna in 1926. The aim was for a Europe based on the principles of liberalism, Christianity and social responsibility.His ideas influenced Aristide Briand, French Prime Minister, who gave on 8 September 1929 a speech before the Assembly of the League of Nations in which he proposed the idea of a federation of European nations based on solidarity and in the pursuit of economic prosperity and political and social co-operation. At the League's request, Briand presented in 1930 his "Memorandum on the Organization of a Regime of European Federal Union" for the Government of France. In the early 1930s, French politician Édouard Herriot and British civil servant Arthur Salter both penned books titled The United States of Europe.
After the First World War, Winston Churchill had seen continental Europe as a source of threats and sought to avoid the United Kingdom's involvement in European conflicts. On 15 February 1930, Churchill commented in the American journal The Saturday Evening Post that a "European Union" was possible between continental states, but without the United Kingdom's involvement:
During the 1930s, Churchill was influenced by and became an advocate of the ideas of Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi and his Paneuropean Union, though Churchill did not advocate the United Kingdom's membership of such a union..
During the World War II victories of Nazi Germany in 1940, Wilhelm II stated that "the hand of God is creating a new world & working miracles.... We are becoming the United States of Europe under German leadership, a united European Continent".
In 1941, the Italian anti-fascists Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi finished writing the Ventotene Manifesto, encouraging a federation of European states.
The European Confederation was a proposed political institution of European unity, which was to be part of a wider restructuring. Proposed by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in March 1943, the concept was rejected by Führer Adolf Hitler. Also in 1943 the Italian Fascists proposed the creation of a 'European Community' free of British 'intrigues' at their Congress of Verona in their newly declared Salo Republic.
Post World War II
Churchill used the term "United States of Europe" in a speech delivered on 19 September 1946 at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. In this speech given after the end of the Second World War, Churchill concluded:While Churchill advocated a united Europe, he saw Britain and its Commonwealth, along with the United States of America, and Soviet Russia as "the friends and sponsors of the new Europe", separate to a United States of Europe led by France and Germany.
As early as 21 October 1942, in a minute to his Foreign Secretary, Winston Churchill had written, "I look forward to a United States of Europe in which the barriers between the nations will be greatly minimised and unrestricted travel will be possible".
Churchill's was a more cautious approach to European integration than was the continental approach that was known as "the federalist position". The Federalists advocated full integration with a constitution, while the Unionist United Europe Movement advocated a consultative body; the Federalists prevailed at the Congress of Europe. The primary accomplishment of the Congress of Europe was the European Court of Human Rights, which predates the European Union.
In the 1947 essay "Toward European Unity", English writer George Orwell called for the establishment of a Federal Europe under a system of democratic socialism, which he believed could act as a geopolitical counterweight to both the capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union.
The Union Movement was a British party founded by Oswald Mosley after the dissolution of his British Union of Fascists. Mosley first presented his idea of "Europe a Nation" in his book The Alternative in 1947. He argued that the traditional vision of nationalism that had been followed by the various shades of pre-war fascism had been too narrow in scope and that the post-war era required a new paradigm in which Europe would come together as a single state. In October 1948 when Mosley called for elections to a European Assembly as the first step towards his vision. Nation Europa was a German magazine inspired by Mosley's ideas, founded in 1951 by former SS commander Arthur Ehrhardt and Herbert Boehme with the support of Carl-Ehrenfried Carlberg. Mosley would establish the National Party of Europe and his journal called The European.
By the 1950s and 1960s, Europe saw the emergence of two different projects, the European Free Trade Association and the much more political European Economic Community.
Early 21st century
Individuals such as the former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer have said that he believes that in the end, the EU must become a single federation, with its political leader chosen by direct elections among all of its citizens. However, claims that the then-proposed Treaty of Nice aimed to create a "European superstate" were rejected by former United Kingdom European Commissioner Chris Patten and by many member-state governments.Proposals for closer union
The member states of the European Union have many common policies within the EU and on behalf of the EU that are sometimes suggestive of a single state. It has a common policy-setting body, the European Council that defines the overall political direction and priorities of the European Union. It has a common executive to oversee execution of policies and to verify compliance with Treaty obligations, including a single High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy. It has a common European Security and Defence Policy, a single internal market for goods and services, freedom of movement of persons for work, a European citizenship granting European rights, a supreme court, a common legislature in the form of the directly elected European Parliament and the Council of the EU representing Member States, and numerous agencies and other bodies to implement European law and coordinate policies.European Law also takes precedence over national law in all areas granted to it by member states, ranging from energy and environmental policy to consumer rights and criminal justice. There are few domestic policies that are not impacted in some way by European Law agreed by the legislative bodies. The euro is often referred to as the "single European currency", which has been officially adopted by twenty EU countries while two other member countries of the European Union have linked their currencies to the euro in ERM II. Then non-EU member states of Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City concluded monetary agreements with the EU on the usage of the euro. The non-EU member states of Kosovo and Montenegro adopted the euro unilaterally.
Several pan-European institutions exist separate from the EU. The European Space Agency counts almost all EU member states in its membership, but it is independent of the EU and its membership includes nations that are not EU members, notably Switzerland, Norway and as a result of Brexit, the United Kingdom. The European Court of Human Rights is also independent of the EU. It is an element of the Council of Europe, which like ESA counts EU members and non-members alike in its membership. The European Political Community is an intergovernmental organization which was founded in 2022 and calls for greater cooperation among European nations, with 47 European states participating.
At present, the European Union is a free association of sovereign states designed to further their shared aims. Other than the vague aim of "ever closer union" in the Solemn Declaration on European Union, the EU has no current policy to form a federal union. However, in the past Jean Monnet, a person associated with the EU and its predecessor the European Economic Community, did make such proposals. A wide range of other terms are in use to describe the possible future political structure of Europe as a whole and/or the EU. Some of them, such as "United Europe", are used often and in such varied contexts, but they have no definite constitutional status.
In the United States of America, the concept enters serious discussions of whether a unified Europe is feasible and what impact increased European unity would have on the United States of America's relative political and economic power. Glyn Morgan, a Harvard University associate professor of government and social studies, uses it unapologetically in the title of his book The Idea of a European Superstate: Public Justification and European Integration. While Morgan's text focuses on the security implications of a unified Europe, a number of other recent texts focus on the economic implications of such an entity. Important recent texts here include T. R. Reid's The United States of Europe and Jeremy Rifkin's The European Dream. Neither the National Review nor the Chronicle of Higher Education doubt the appropriateness of the term in their reviews.