Are you For or Against the formation of a United States of Europe (USE)?

[nightdrot]

Voted "AGAINST." Because at the most fundamental level, the European Union is only the sum of its member state's national interests and those national interests conflict. Thus the EU has what I call a "least common denominator foreign policy." That is, a foreign policy defined by what can be agreed among the member states whose own interests often conflict.

It further to be added that it was not the original intent of the EU - which began as the European Common Market, evolved into the "European Community" and has now only, rather recently, become the European Union with the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. It further being added that actually, in terms of the relations between its member states, the EU is something of a political giant.

The EU was born in the ashes of two world wars. Those wars, to some extent mistakenly, were attributed to the rise of nationalism. Itself a reaction to the Enlightenment, whose central animating idea was that man was a rational and social being, born with natural rights. However, pre-rational ideas had resulted in cultural and legal divisions that corrupted man's basic nature.

The idea was that if law was made in conformance with natural law, including the laws of economics, man would revert to his rational and social nature and peace and prosperity would follow. These natural laws transcending narrower national, ethnic, religious and other ideas. Thus did Adam Smith write, "The merchant has no country."

The EU, then, was born in the idea that if a sufficient legal, institutional and diplomatic framework could be established. Economics would replace national interests and in time economic and financial connections would replace national interests.

It sort of worked out that way. In effect, the EU - significantly and not unimportantly abetted by NATO - has anchored Germany into the European security framework. Germany, of whom Kissinger said that its' fundamental problem was that it is "too weak to rule the world but too strong to fit securely within Europe." This reassured France, which in time has come to use German economic strength - Germany has the world's fourth largest economy - to underpin France's military and foreign policy at a global level.

Into this Italy plays a balancing role. Tending to side with Germany in foreign and defense policy questions while siding with France on economic, financial and cultural questions.

As to Britain, this interestingly reflecting the United Kingdom's historic foreign policy of "splendid isolation." In which the UK - Europe's other world power along with France - stayed aloof from continental affairs unless the balance of power was threatened. (Thus, ultimately, the UK's less than enthusiastic embrace of "Europe" and ultimately was "Brexit" born.)

The various other states of Europe have also played out their historic national interests within the legal, institutional and diplomatic framework of the EU. Thus the EU - and NATO - stabilized Europe.

However, what the EU's founders did not anticipate was that those national interests are deeply rooted and not accidental. Thus such interests have not been eliminated by the economic relationships within the EU. Further, with there position in Europe more or less secured, the bigger states of Europe - see the UK (until Brexit), France, Germany and Italy - have felt secure enough to pursue those wider global interests.

Those interests again often in conflict. See also Germany's very different relationship to Russia as against France's. See also the states of Europe varying relationships to the United States, China and India.

CONT.

[Nomoturtle]

Although Britain is excluded from the image (damn right), I wouldn't even want to see those chuckleheads assemble even if we had nothing to do with it, assuming it would basically be the same as the UN. Hearing some of the speakers at the UN talking about equality, hate speech, etc. was part of what first got me engaged in politics 4 or so years ago.

More generally, also no. Small nations with particular governance is better than a bloated state with clumsy one-size-fits-all policies.
I also don't see any need to add further threats to the US hegemon, the US is relatively good as the strongest entity.
I also don't trust either the progressive clowns of Germany and co., or the demoralised pragmatism of the Eastern block. Neither respects liberty or individualism, I feel. The former is chasing contemporary ideals inherited by the latest variant of socialism, the latter has been driven to respect force over ideals.

[Alexandrubaschet08]

As a European citizen, I spoke in favor of union.
I believe that we would be a state far superior to any other current European state. Our economies will only benefit and the possibility of cooperation between those capable leaders of our continent would strengthen this project and the unity between us.
Armies would no longer need to protect non-existent threats.
The Germans would have a restricted status in terms of military leadership and rights.
One could invent a common language that was initially taught as a second foreign language and later in the decades advanced to the status of a first foreign language (like today's English), later replacing the mother tongues in order to remove language barriers.
The fanatical nationalism of the Balkans would have been extinguished and stabilized for a long time. The East would develop and be economically uniform.
While the West can expand its ideas of peace, unity and economic progress.
We would all have something to learn from each other.
I hope that this unity will not remain just a beautiful dream, I would swear the faith of the United States of Europe from day one.

[bolverk]

A United States of Europe will not happen just look a the European Union now, it is broken and disjointed with countries looking a how Great Britain has walked away and are considering the same thing, financially in chaos- none of the yearly budgets have ever been signed off on since the Unions inception (was established in 1993, coming into full force in 2002). The Union Commission that actually runs the EU takes no notice of the European Parliament or any motions put forward by of the MEP’s (Members of European Parliament).

The European Union has 24 official languages, though language policy is the responsibility of member states, EU institutions promote multilingualism among its citizens. In 2012, English was the most widely spoken language in the EU, being understood by 51 per cent of the EU population when counting both native and non-native speakers. However, following the UK's exit from the block in early 2020, the percentage of the EU population who spoke English as their native language fell from 13 per cent to 1 per cent.

And they think that they can weld that into a country good bloody luck with that.

[Guanfei]

Against. The EU as it is isn't a democracy. They don't even respect their members when they're supposed to still be sovereign, if they lose all their sovereignty they will basically crush them.
Sure, they are "elections" and "representative" but in the end, the decisions are taken by people who aren't elected, but put in place.
Also, it's pretty much submitted to China and the US, they'll sell any company for the right amount of money, even critical companies.
Their moto is "private companies and competition over all" to the point we're slowly losing all our public company, at least those who make benefits, to the private sector, and those who are in debt are left public so taxpayers will fund them without getting any benefit from it.
They're also not protecting their members against "social dumping" aka bringing in a lot of immigration to push salaries and working condition down.
Mass immigration that also destroys cultures, traditions, and security for the sake of profit.

The EU, today, is basically destroying nations composing it.

[OpenClose]

I'm against. I mean if the idea was to be modeled somewhat after the USA, it kinda defeats the purpose. The USA was supposed to be a union of sovereign states. Essentially, the states were supposed to be sovereign nations, and the USA was supposed to be more like what the EU is now.

Regardless, if the USE did become a thing, it might still be kinda rad. Might see some similarities, too.
- A similar hispanic/latino southwest.
- A libertarian-left mountainous state that seems to prefer being left out of shit. (IF the Swiss accept this in the first place.)
- A southeast that is constantly in financial crisis and relies on bailouts from the more industrious states.
- A further southeast whose main source of income is tourism.
- A relatively-conservative midwest made of forests and industrial auto giants.
- A bunch of states to the east that were members of a once-major empire that collapsed under its own bureaucracy.

It all just lines up.

[MuddyMole]

It's really hard to define what that even means.
Free trade is good. Freedom of travel (including to work) is good. Those things necessitate certain rules though - free trade doesn't work if one country undercuts the others by having lower standards and allowing poorer working conditions etc - there needs to be a level playing field.

That tends to be where the disagreements start - exactly what rules are needed, who makes them, and what should be left to individual countries to decide.
Brexit came about mainly because the Brexiteers scapegoated Eastern European immigrants as the cause of everyone's problems, but they'd been undermining the EU for decades before that, spreading nonsense about overreaching EU laws - such as bans on the sale of bananas that are not straight, or that come in bunches of more than two - which simply didn't exist.

[Anonymous]

Larger governments is a bad idea, in the USA the highly populated states ignore the smaller rural states, they don't give a crap about us. Local, closer to home representation understands needs better. We see it now with Biden who is Fing over the rural states in everything he is doing.

There is a name for this, tyranny rule of the majority. Keeping the countries unique lets them focus on their own individual needs internally without being ignored by the masses or hurt by them.

I personally think the USA itself should be broken down, since Washington and big blue liberal states don't give a shit about the red states. Why would anyone want to stay part of a country that hates you?

[ManOnFire]

I mean... I'm neither for or against it really. I guess if it actually works and makes things better for their countries and their people. I feel the EU has already had some issues in the last 20 years anyway, so maybe it's time for an upgrade? But then on the other hand, you could argue that Germany wanting to make this happen sounds like another version of a Third Reich in the works, I don't know.

I remember back in the early 2000s there was briefly talk of America and Mexico forming a whole new currency called the Amero that would've been used between both countries. That actually sounded like a good idea. I also think the Central American countries should form together into a powerhouse of their own too.

[Neosporin]

I'm not against it but I don't think it makes geographical sense. Europe is not a very clean shape for a country. It make more sense if all the northern European countries unified only. Or maybe a return of the Holy Roman Empire or the Frankish Empire.

Holy Roman Empire

Frankish Empire

These political states made more geographical sense.

[Soteris]

Dont have any feelings either for or against it. While unity is generally a good thing many of the countries in question still have a lot of issues that they have to work through before something like this would work smoothly. As such it would cause massive issues along with the great benefits which sort of cancels themselves out.

A better idea for right now would probably to increase the interconnection though the EU first. Education, healthcare and economic projects are a good start to bring everyone up to a world leading position and ease cross border cooperation in these areas. With the absolute failure of NATO and considering not everyone in the EU is part of it there is a good argument to be made for a unified EU military as well to protect EU borders and EU interests rather than national interest. Finally the Euro should be pushed everywhere before any sort of unification to ease monetary unity.

[Lionman95]

I´m against it because I don´t see anything good in it. Europe life root is the diversity of cultures. Big nations on the European continent never worked well unless the rules ignored and hold down minorities.
I don´t see how this should work and what´s speaking for it.

[ChrisMaster69]

No it would be doomed to failure, even with just the EU there are huge differences between countries and even regions within countries.

There have been wars and revolutions to break up countries within Europe, having them bond even further would likely result in conflict.

A lot of countries put up with the EU, losing more sovereignty would be a step to far.

[Curmudgeon]

While perhaps laudable was the attempt to make Europe more peaceful, the European Union really *has not* worked out well. Here is a good video essay by a former pilot. He uses the pilot analogy to explain why a "United Staes of Europe" just has not worked out:https://www.youtube.com/embed/hwNn7VlnczQ

[FreyaRed]

Against. EU council show permanently their incompetence in matter of Immigration and failed integration that creates parallel societies in western EU member states, what finally destabilizes the EU. I'm for economic cooperation but against any other involvement of EU in shaping European societies in EU's desired shape. That is entirely based on self-destructive ideology

[AviatorTom]

More integration of the member nations of the EU is inevitable, with respect to economy, elections and foreign affairs, especially with its two largest powers (Germany and France) in favor of it. Whether that gets called a United States of Europe, though, would be difficult. Unlike when the Unites States of America formed from 13 colonies, each with a more-or-less common heritage and language, the 28 member nations of the EU have significant cultural, political and language differences.

[Anonymous]

For it
Even though having a formal document or law about it it’s nothing. They are trying to ruin Europe for a reason. They never won for millions of years history has show it
but recently they let the Arab world open so they are flooding to Europe. Eventually Europe is going to slowly die.

[ODC2112]

Of course, as an Italian I am in favor of the creation of the United States of Europe. Of course, the survey is not aimed at continental Europeans, since they are all Americans here and would only have to lose by creating a European federation. Whether the Americans, the British, the Chinese or the Russians like it or not.

[Gal67]

I'm in favour of the idea. At the moment, the U. S. has them under it's thumb and constantly bosses them around, but Europe is better than the U. S., in every way, so it's time they declared their independence from the evil empire and became a superpower in their own right.

[UdontNeedtoknow]

This is just Germany trying to do through treaty, what it could not accomplish on the battle field. The smaller countries would lose everything and just become vassals to Germany. France would also be better served by not federalizing the E. U. France would be better off if they left and served there own interests.

[Anonymous]

Against.
There's no need for that centralization. It only serves to undermine society.
You can have perfectly adequate trade, immigration, and security arrangements by using good relationships between nations which preserve their sovereignty. A push for central government is either because someone wants a bigger chair or worse because they've decided they know what's best for you and are ready to act on it.

[BCA6010]

I don't see that working out. The European leaders may be sucking each other off and smoking and joking while they screw their countries over for the greater good, but the people and their respective cultures are nowhere near that cozy.