United States of Europe
The European Union is not a state, but it possesses state-like characteristics in certain areas. Undoubtedly, European integration requires further development. However, the paternalistic nation-state is not a good model for this. A commentary by Karl von Habsburg.
The term “United States of Europe” keeps haunting the debate whenever the further development of the European Union is discussed. This, of course, touches upon the question of the finality of European integration without seriously debating it. Politicians shy away from this discussion on finality, yet today they make decisions that create path dependencies, steering the answer to the finality question in a specific direction. For example, if in a crisis situation where national bankruptcy looms, the discussion is not about how to handle a sovereign default, but instead gigantic rescue packages are created—the long-term consequences of which are not even understood by the politicians who created them (some even admit it)—then consequences follow. One of these is the currently discussed conversion of the European Stability Mechanism ESM into a European Monetary Fund. Economically, such a European Monetary Fund is completely pointless. Why do you need a monetary fund within a single currency? Following the internal logic of politico-bureaucratic decisions, however, the ESM cannot be abolished once created, even though that would be the most sensible solution and—including a regulation on the handling of sovereign defaults—the best motivation for a return to solid budgetary policy.
Above all, the question arises: what is actually meant by the “United States of Europe”? Should Europe be designed to be centralist or subsidiary, based on the rule of law or the primacy of politics, built on values or purely technocratic, etc. etc.? Is there a model for these United States? The discussion, and thus the interpretations, are as old as the ideas for the unification of Europe themselves.
What is the model?
Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi brought the term “United States of Europe” into play as early as 1923. In his book “Paneuropa”, he writes: “The crowning achievement of Paneuropean efforts would be the constitution of the United States of Europe after the pattern of the United States of America.” A few years later, in the journal Paneuropa, which was by then being published, he commented on this again under the title “Switzerland as a Model”: “The designation ‘United States of Europe’ has led to many misunderstandings. It was understood as a European analogy to the United States of America.” … “Europe will never be able to imitate the American constitution; any attempt to do so would threaten Paneuropean development. In its realisation, Europe can follow no foreign example, but only a European one; not the United States of America, but the Swiss Confederation.”
In doing so, he raises the question of the nature of the state and the tasks a state must fulfil. Switzerland is undoubtedly a functioning polity, with a decentralised, subsidiary structure, lower taxes than most EU countries, and lower national debt. If we take the currently prevailing understanding of a welfare state—as is largely the case in EU member states—as a basis, then European integration will take a centralist direction. This is because the national welfare state must necessarily be organised centralistically. It follows the paternalistic idea that the state must regulate everything for its citizens for their own good.
These paternalistic notions inevitably keep resurfacing at the EU level. This is nothing new. This is shown by an excerpt from the obituary my father, Otto von Habsburg, wrote for Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi in 1972. He refers there to an initiative by the then short-term Commission President Sicco Mansholt: “Coudenhove was concerned, especially in the last months of his life, about the new movement hostile to freedom, expressed by the current President of the European Commission, Mr Sicco Mansholt. Mansholt is certainly no conscious follower of totalitarian lines of thought. But his plan to subordinate the Europe of tomorrow to an all-wise and omniscient bureaucracy not only threatens personal freedom but is also the shortest path to a new form of totalitarianism. Coudenhove knew that the evil forces of the past never appear with the same mask as they did then. It is a recurring historical absurdity that states and societies usually only prepare for past revolutions, but rarely possess the ability to think ahead in this field. … This is a new form of feudalism, intended to be dominated by the ‘new class’, the bureaucratic apparatus. The feudalism of our days is more dangerous than ever in history because it would be equipped with the unlimited means of modern technology.”
Subsidiarity and the Rule of Law
And because these ideas keep returning under ever-new guises and with ever-new justifications, it will be necessary to steer the discussion on European integration and its further development in a direction called subsidiarity. The EU must be strengthened and develop its own competence where this creates added value for Europe and Europeans. This is primarily foreign and security policy. This also includes ensuring the rule of law and guaranteeing the freedom and individual responsibility of citizens, as well as the framework for a free economy.
If one takes these principles as the basis of European policy, it becomes clear that the European project is endowed with one great goal: the freedom and security of its citizens.
