Is The EU A Federal State Essay

Is The EU A Federal State. Essay, Research Paper

The main objectives of this paper is, by looking at other federations to find out what makes a federation and compare the position of the European Union in regard to these concepts. But first, I will start with an introduction on the integration of Europe, in which federalists had an important say.

Federation – the ultimate peace treaty

Proposals for a federalist unification of Europe came already in the 18th century. For Immanuel Kant, the federation was a means of achieving a perpetual peace. He saw the solution to trouble not in treaties but in a federation of peoples. This federation, he argued ‘has no aim to acquire any power like that of a state, but merely to preserve and secure the freedom of each state in itself.’ This belief is, I think, what brought the first efforts towards European Integration in the post-war period. For Winston Churchill, a federation of states would ensure peace, safety and freedom. By 1943 he called for a United States of Europe. The main thought behind Monnet’s and Schuman’s proposals for integration was also based on the principle of collective security and had as their main aim the control of Germany. Like Kant, Schuman in his ‘Declaration’ states that the pooling of coal and steel will lead to the first concrete foundation of a European federation – which, like Kant stressed, is indispensable to the preservation of peace.

There were two different ‘federal’ approaches in the post-War period. On the one hand we have Monnet’s functionalism : a step by step construction of Europe, with successive layers becoming easier to achieve due to the concept of spill-over. On the other hand we have Spinelli’s constitutionalism. He believed that solution was to prepare a constitution and ratifying it. He called upon the Americans to use Marshall Plan dollars to impose an American style federal model on Europe.

This second possibility proved to be impossible in the post-war period. Most of the West European states, who had just regained their status as sovereign nation states after World War II, were unwilling to lose such a significant account of their sovereignty in favour of a federal Europe. The only supranational institution formed was the High Authority. However the pro-federalist had to face a number of distinct politicians who did not believe that a federal Europe was the solution. Two of these were General Charles de Gaulle and Margaret Thathcer. De Gaulle argued that ‘at present there is and can be no Europe other than a Europe of the States’

Thatcher’s arguments revolved around the concept of ‘family of nations’; she promoted co-operation between independent sovereign states and explained that efforts and centralization have been unsuccessful elsewhere, citing the Soviet Union as an example.

Therefore fifty years of European construction have been characterized by this battles. What is Europe today. To analyze how a federal state should be I will consider three federal systems principally, namely the United States, Germany and Switzerland. The European Union’s members are definitely sovereign states very different from the provinces and states which form traditional federation such as the US and Germany. States like Great Britain and France have a long history of independence with a strong role in the world political arena. On the other hand there is no state in the US or Germany with such a history.

To understand whether the EU is federal or not I will look at two principle systems: the political and the judicial systems. I will tackle first the political system.

Federalism and the Political System

According to Douglas V. Verney, federalism proper involves three fundamental principles:

- A constitutional distribution of powers.

- The separation of the executive and legislative branches of governments.

- A division of the legislature into two roughly equal chambers.

It is only in the first of these criteria that the European Union does seem to conform. There is no Constitution of Europe in which the powers are distributed between the Commission and the States but there are different treaties which do have this role.

As regards the separation of the branches, in theory this exists, but not in practice. This system is severely unbalanced with three institutions making up the executive (Commission, Council of Ministers and European Council) and then one much weaker institution representing the legislative branch (European Parliament).

Regarding the third federal principle, there is no division of the legislature. Actually, there is no upper house representing the Member States. True, there is the Council of Ministers, but that is an executive body which meets in private and thus it cannot be compared to a legislative body which engages in public debates. It has what many observers called a “democratic deficit”

In the United States the Senate has always played a very important role as the representative of the states, which are unequal in population. Eight American states which together have a population of about five million elect 16 senators, while California with 31 million has only two, just as the small states. This is elected by the citizens since 1913. This is not the same for all federations. In Germany the larger l.nder return more members to

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