Europe, which has not stirred greatly in response to the crisis or to the “seriousness of the events that have occurred since 2008”, has been a disappointment. We are a long way from political union, says Jean-François Drevet, or even from a coordinated management of economies, which was assumed to be inevitable when the euro was created. All this is evidence that the process of European construction is grinding to a halt.
Drevet concedes, however, that none of the currently functioning federal states was established without a transition period. Such periods varied in length and involved similar difficulties to those the European Union (EU) is currently encountering.
Stressing the similarities between the confederal models of three countries — the USA, Australia and Switzerland — and that of the EU, Drevet shows, for example, that the problems Europe is facing are neither new nor insoluble, even if he does conclude that, “without a pressure similar to that seen at Philadelphia or Berne”, an already very long transition period is in danger of going on forever.
Is Federal Europe Avoidable?
This article is published in Futuribles journal ,
