United Europe would it work?

[paulcs]

What language would be spoken in the United States of Europe? Esparanto?

Personally, I'd vote for English.

Paul
paulcs@speakeasy.net

[Vlip]

I realise that I may sound stupid but all those question you are asking yourself about bigger/smaller state representation has already been solved by Switzerland for the last couple of centuries
That's what is called a federal state and it actually works. In the european idea it would just need to be level more. Most decisions are taken on the local level (even police is a local thing...), only big decisions are taken federaly (foreign policy, army,...)

I think the main problem Europe has to face are the nationalists of each country. I'm sure Jean-Marie Le Penn would rather die than having the a true federal state in Europe.

Vlip

P.S: Has been a long time since my last post, feels good

[RusCoder]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">
parties with the same orientation all over Europe will unite making one European Liberal Party, one European Conservatory Party, one European Democratic Party, One European Green Party, One European Social-Democratic Party
</font>

Why on Earth should you have that plethora of parties? United Europe, doesn't it mean: United Party, United Ministry of Love, United Ministry of Truth etc.

Strange. Hardly had we Russians got ridden of the damned 'Totalitarianism'(sp?) equally notorious and despised by liberally thinking Europeans - the same Europeans are picking up the fallen flag. For what did Europe help us to defeat the Soviets? If the answer is to suppress diversity, to unify nations, to even up everything still worth admiring in the continent (old, very old heritage), I'll require my former 'Empire' back too.

Sorry, me too sometimes feeling myself a European. A bit.


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Merely this and nothing more

[This message has been edited by RusCoder (edited 26 March 2001).]

[The PIT]

Interesting idea admiral about parties becoming united. Theres one problem though a smaller country will find that it's been run by a party that it hasn't voted for. They will become the gineau pigs for any new policy because votes cannot be lost if the policy is unpopular.
If you don't believe me look how the Tory government treated Scotland. Total contempt.

[Admiral]

OK we shouldn't totally dump each state's governement. If at the federal level a socialist party gets to power than people in each country could vote for the right and form their regional government out of that.
Think at each member state as a city inside a country. Hold ellections at a federal level and at a regional level, state level.
They won't have legislative power, leaving that to the EU (the federal) parliament but they will have executive, each state deciding how to apply that law, to make use of its benefits and avoid what's wrong in it.

Here's a thought:

Rotative presidency as a simbolic one, with a moderating role between the political parties and a foreign relations role.

Federal parliament formed from the political parties (the united ones) with a legislative role, after federal ellections.

Local, state government formed by the party who wins the state ellections (ellected from the same united parties), government with executive power. Of course, you wont't send people from France to rule in Engalnd, you'll form it from the members of the winning party that live in that country.




[This message has been edited by Admiral (edited 26 March 2001).]

[paulcs]

Gosh, how would something like this sell in the UK? Surrendering most of British sovereignty? To the Continent? That seems to me the most radical shift of thinking in history.

I could say "stranger things have happened," but I would be lying. I just don't see it. I'm not looking to be provocative. Again, I just don't see it.

Paul
paulcs@speakeasy.net

[SteveC]

I think I speak for most of the UK population:

Do what you want with the EU and we won't care as long as we still speak English and we still use Pounds and Pence

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Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[Jorden]

The United States of America.
The United States of Russia, with a lot of them states falling off, or going to war against Russia.

The United States of Europe. Now that's interesting. We've got the European Union since long ago, and all the countries in the EU have been working to become a pact since that time. We can cross borders without passports (due to the Schengen agreement) and now we're going to have one currency.

I'm not sure I want to live it out until we finally unite and become one big world country, without distinctiveness between the different countries

Especially when the French are in on it... brrrr

Jord.

[paulcs]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by SteveC:
Do what you want with the EU and we won't care as long as we still speak English and we still use Pounds and Pence

</font>

See, there's something going on here. Something, I think, that goes beyond language and currency. They appear, at least from my perspective, to represent a national identity. That appears to run counter to the idea of a United States of Europe as a single nation state.

Paul
paulcs@speakeasy.net

[KvHagedorn]

United States of Europe. Would this work?

no.

[The PIT]

The Presidency unfortunatley has been in the past used as an excuse for a nation to get it's own way. Old maggie loved it and no doubt French Germany etc have used it to their advantage as well.
Admiral. Isn't your solution again going to lead to indepandant politics again. If apolicy/law got passed by the Eu and a small state/city didn't like it they could just delay it by constanly arguing about it and therefore never passing it. It's also going to a nightmare to setup if you ever could.
Got to start work now.

[paulcs]

You could do what we do and let Florida decide on the important stuff!!

Just make sure it doesn't involve reading or counting.

Paul
paulcs@speakeasy.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 27 March 2001).]

[Admiral]

The hell with all those proposals, let's just go the American way.
I mean, they have a federal parliament (the Congress), they have a fedeeral government.
They have a local, state government, lead by a governor with the same posts in the cabinet as the federal government has. i.e: state secretary, defense secretary... bla, bla, bla. They also have a state congress, don't they ?
They have united parties, I don't see a puertorican, cuban or whatever party in Florida or difeerent parties in different states, there's only two big parties.
And most important of all they speak only one language and use only one measuring system (that's what you wanted to hear paulcs ? )

We can't ever use only one language, but we can use two official languages, English and the state's language. As for one measuring system, Britain is the only country in the Eu that is different and as long as they want in and enjoy a leading position in the EU they could at least try the metric system.

[The PIT]

Naw the French want french to be the offical language

[Admiral]

You can't make them all happy. I think getting the brits to use the metric system is enough of a compromise to make the french learn English