Ministers want to “transform EU into federal state”
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/world-ar...0&nav_id=80854VIENNA -- Ten EU foreign ministers, including Austrian FM Michael Spindelegger, are planning on turning the EU into a federal state modeled after the U.S.
Vienna-based daily Presse claims that the “Group for the Future” is planning on transforming the political system in the Union.
The group was initiated by German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle.
Foreign ministers of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Span have been holding regular meetings since the beginning of the year. They submitted their proposal to European Commission (EC) President Jose Manuel Barroso, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, European Central Bank Head Mario Draghi and Eurogroup head Jean-Claude Juncker on Tuesday.
The EC president should have a more important role, similar to the role of a prime minister. The EC president would be elected in a direct vote and would be able to form their own team, Die Presse has reported, adding that the EC president would become the most influential politician in Europe since they would be responsible for new laws and their implementation.
The daily writes that completely new democratic structures are envisaged by the draft agreement. The EU should become a federal state modeled after the U.S., with a two-house parliamentary system and a president that would be elected in a direct vote.
According to Die Presse, the system would create democracy in the EU.
The foreign ministers stressed in the draft document that the EU was in need of new democratic structures due to the economic crisis and tendencies to make the monetary union irreversible.
They also advocate joint European protection of borders and support the joint foreign and security policy that could even include forming of an EU army.
The ten ministers also advocate a direct control of national budgets, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently requested with her fiscal union initiative.
According to the daily, they also want national parliaments to be more involved in the decision-making process in the EU.
and here is the link on original Die Presse reprort
http://diepresse.com/home/politik/eu.../home/index.do
While I, for one, welcome our new European overlords.
"Never let a crisis go to waste."
It's brilliant really: nation after nation rejected EU referenda, but now if they **** up the debt crisis enough, they can claim the only way out is a federal state. And presumably in the future, being French would mean the same thing as being from Delaware.
Hopefully not...Originally Posted by Mu-Meson
Delaware, jeeez!
I'll move to Greenland if so..
EU is starting to look like socialist Yugoslavia and Soviet Union.... various Committees ,Councils ,comrades ,chairmans and commissars
A federation built against the will of the people. Oh this is going to end well indeed!
It's announcements like this that make me glad I'm in one of the more Euro-sceptical nations.
I would not want a federal EU unless I have at least as much voting rights as I do right now. Faceless bureaucrats running the show is a bad idea, i thought the apparatus in Brussels had already shown us this...
I don't know about the group's ulterior motives, but at least the group behind the proposal are (indirectly) chosen by their respective citizens. If we are going to end up as a federation anyway, and all signs are pointing to this happening somewhere down the road, we might as well try to make the most out of it..
Greenland would be our Alaska and the Falklands our Hawaii... or something like that
Germany would be somewhere in the mid-west and Greece would be New Mexico..
I live actually in Switzerland, a federal state too with Germen/French/Italian speakers, and this country is not so bad
But about Europe isnt all this story go too much fast? Difference between countries like language, culture, etc it take century to unify it.
Federations in and of themselves are fine. It just wouldn't work for the European Union in the forseeable future.
I tend to think it will eventually happen. It will spread from there.
I watched an interview with a French ex-minister of some kind, or maybe he was a banker. At any rate, according to him, the steps taken by the Eurozone thus far- common currency, etc. -were deliberately put in place to make Federalization a necessity. Not sure how much I believe it, but he seemed pretty convinced of it himself. The kind of guy you'd like to punch in the face.
Go and educate yourself.
... Delaware ? I thought we were like Massachusetts or Maine...
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