A Federal Europe?

[u/Esteban83550]

Do you like the idea of a federal Europe? having some areas of sovereignty like the Army, a substantial budget, an elected president and government and many more

765 votes, 16d ago

373 Yes Absolutely

139 Yes partially

68 Not sure

44 No partially

141 Absolutely against

[u/FabianButHere]

UdSSR was a federation too. They did their best to homogenise.

The EU will do the same. And even if not, you can't create supreme laws for all those countries at once and have them make sense for the people of all countries at once.

I don't even think most member states in the EU can do that within their own country, that's why I definitely think states should be way, way smaller (or not exist at all, but sadly anarchy is but an utopia).

[u/Reality-Straight → u/FabianButHere]

UdSSR was a dictatorship and in practice not a federation. More a collection of vassal states under russia.

[u/FabianButHere → u/Reality-Straight]

And, because of the differences of the nations of the EU, the EU federation will be forced to either fall apart or employ similar practices of homogenisation. It eill probably fall apart instead, but look at polls all over Europe (surge in extreme left and extreme right parties), and the chance a bad actor will homogenise instead is high. I'm not gonna say that for a third time though.

Why would you join so highly independent and split apart states together into a federation? Germany has nothing to do with Bulgaria has nothing to do with Cyprus has nothing to do with Croatia has nothing to do with Spain. The only common factor, which is the EU's purpose, are some small parts of politics. However, the EU cannot make regulation (as a federation would have to) about taxes, everyday living, and a social system, because they differ so, so heavily from state to state.

Meaning, yes you could join all states into a federation which has the only goal to do a small amount of diplomatic and standardisation things, but by that your country giving up parts of its sovereignty to the EU, which, since it is a federation, would have more rights than just standardisation and diplomacy, which it shouldn't have. Because it doesn't make sense for it to have that.

You're just giving up power, for no real reason. A state is not just defined by its politics. And just as you can't make Canada and Russia into one nation because you're feeling like it, you can't do that to the EU, because the nations are too different.

[u/Reality-Straight → u/FabianButHere]

Hamburg had little in common with Munich, Frankfurt little with Berlin, hessen little with Schleswig. Yet they united to become one nation under one rule for protection, influence and cause they grew closer to one people over the years of confederation.

Just look at this sub, national borders dont deivide us here, if i talk to a bulgarian, a frenchmen or a pole they are all brothers and sisters of mine. That cultures and borders devide us and make us too different to coexist is an illusion born in nationalism and nothing more.

[u/FabianButHere → u/Reality-Straight]

But they had history. And they were at least fairly close, both geographically and, by being fairly open to outsiders ("immigrants") for kingdoms, had a steady cultural exchange.

The reason they wanted stability, though, was a result of the inherent war that emerges with power hungry kingdoms.

National borders don't divide us in certain exchanges. But as soon as I'm talking about work culture, or the economy, they do. We can exchange, yes, but we couldn't suddenly live under the same conditions. Very recent example I personally realised: I always felt like everything West of Poland was fairly "westernised" and similar. My dad moved to Portugal this summer, and I can tell you, no it's not.

The average pay, while around 4k in Germany, is 1.5k. Yes, stuff is cheaper, but the buying power is on average 40% lower. The work ethics here are totally different. Germany works way more. Portugal has stricter company hierarchies. Taxes differ completely.

The societies have nothing to do with each other. Totally different priorities and "typical lives".

And now that's two very developed, culturally and historically rather close countries.

It's small differences, but that's stuff I noticed within a week. Now a year of living here will probably show even more.

Laws need to be fit to their people. How can a country of 450 million people effectively make laws that fit for all of them. They can't, "that's wHY it'S A FedERaTioN", but then why give up power to a federation in the first place?? I want more power close to me. I want strengthed communal politics. I want that I can influence what happens to me. Not for it to be abstracted after even more buerocratic and political layers, that allow for even more populism and for the less politically interested people to have even less of a clue what's going on, and, at the end, make them not care about politics, which undermines the principle of a democracy.

[u/Reality-Straight → u/FabianButHere]

And europe doesn't? The various nationstaes have incredible amounts of history with each other, faster modes of transportation mean that i am in todays time easier in barcelona than someone from munich would be in berlin in 1830. And immigration between the various german states was more controlled than it is between european states today. And thats not even mentioning the internet.

And just cause we have lived in peace longer doesn't mean that others dont wish to strike at as as we are divide like the german states of old. The bear and Panda sit at our door while the eagle wishes us to be under his boot, reliant on him and only him.

Work culture and the economy divide people inside nations just as well, acting like any nation or culture is unified in what they want for the economy is ridiculous. Details can be handled by the nations, only very broad things need to be handled like the eu, if anything thats the main part the eu already acts as a federation, its the one part that doesn't necessarily need more integration beyond standardizing some beurocratic processes.

The average pay in Brandenburg is far less than that in Bavaria, and both are different from Hessen or Niedersachsen. Being one nation has however allowed the east the be the fastest growing and most developed part of the former eastern block far surpassing other nations in it in most categories.

And how is Portugal closer culturally and historically to germany than say poland, greece or bulgaria?

Hell, peolle are vastly different between northa nd south germans as well, from culture to arguably language and work ethic and social norms.

Not all laws will be on the eu level, and no matter how much fun you make of "But thats what a federation is for" it doesn't stop it from being true as that is EXACTLY what a federation is for.

For things that need to be handled on a european level to be handled there and things that need to be local to be handled locally.

Germany is a common example but germany is, for a federation, very centralized into the National government with it being a federation more for administrative reasons than otherwise. This is absolutely not the only way to do federations though,and hasn't even always been the case for germany.

Federations can become more and less centralized over time depending on the needs of the federation.