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My Vision of a New European Union
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| St_Andrew |
My Vision of a New European Union
-By Me :D
The European Union is a great idea, however it is not working quite as it should. To get the optimal out of the EU it needs some fundamental reform, unfortunately the reform that is proposed is usually very close to the current EU. Here is something totally new, which is really rethinking the whole way the European Union would work, and Europe as a whole.
Split up the current countries into smaller states
All the countries as we know them today need to be dissolved, and made into smaller states. These smaller states would consists of about one million people each.
This would fill two purposes:
- Nationalism would be kept to a minimum. Instead of having the false feeling of always standing up in unity as one country, this would show that all the countries in Europe are not as unified as one might think. I just know this from experience in this country and others I have been in or lived in. Different parts of the country are very different. For example all the urban areas in Europe probably have a lot more in common than any of the urban areas in any of the countries have in common with the rural areas in their own country.
- There would be no risk for “big countries taking over”. A common fear for federalism in many of the smaller countries in today's European Union is that they would lose all their powers to the larger member states. In this way every state would get equal powers, and no one should feel left out.
This would of course mean a lot of problems too, since most of the countries have been there for hundreds of years and have a certain way of running things. Some of the main problems are addressed below:
- The most obvious one is probably that people do not want to give up their national identity, having been Swedes, Danish or Germans for centuries people would not want to give up this. This is obviously hard to solve, and I do not know how to do so yet. However I think that if you can get people to understand that it actually does not matter, you might get them onto other ideas. One other thing is that they can still be Swedes or Danish, just that they don't have their governments left, which by the way no one is a big fan of anyway.
Another way to solve this would be to make a light version of this reform, with still having the current national governments left, but at the same time dividing into states, that would only matter for the EU, and at the same time making the country governments mean nothing to the EU. This would mean the same reform for the way the EU is ran, but it would not be the same big difference for the people, so it's not a good reform but still a lot better than what we have now.
- A lot of authorities/agencies/bureaus or whatever you want to call them work on a national level. Examples for this might be ministries for roads, statistics, police etc. This might be hard to give up just like that. The idea would be to give all the states the possibility to continue this cooperation, or they could start one of those agencies by themselves. There would also be a choice for the states to join the federal EU level of this, so for example if a state would like to simply use the federal standards for the roads, they could simply join this and pay their equal share to this ministry and get what they want from it. All these choices gives the states a lot more choice of what to do, and none of them would have to pay for anything they do not want and they could start their own if they want to too.
“Mandatory” Federal Agencies
There will be a federal police that will fight multi national criminal organizations (aka the mafia, and other criminal activity that is a threat to more than one country (including terrorism). This will be a big and powerful organization, but that is also the purpose of it, it is the only way to fight the kind of crime we are seeing in Europe today.
There would also be lots of others, that would be necessarily to keep the EU going, and make everyday life for every European easier. It should not be too many of them though, and they should be kept to a minimum, both in size and the number of them. Bureaucracy must be avoided to every price.
“Optional” Federal Agencies
There will also be lots of other agencies, that today work on a national level (or unnecessarily EU ones, plenty of them as well), that would be optional to join or not. Only the member states that are a member of this part of the cooperation will pay for these. This makes it up to every state exactly how far they want to take the integration.
Army
There will be an EU army. It will consist of people who wants to join the army. The only time a draft could be used is when the EU is at war, and the volunteers are not enough. To declare war/send troops anywhere outside the EU, the decision needs to be ratified by at least 80% of the EU parliament and 80% of the states' parliaments. This will make it hard to declare war without a damn good reason. This would also be necessarily for peacekeeping missions, however that would not be that hard to get passed by those rules.
A draft could only be issued after the same rules as declaring war. Any state that votes against this with a local majority of over 60% will not have to take part in the draft.
Of course if any EU state is attacked, the whole EU would have to defend that state.
How it Should be Governed
The parliament will be the central part of the EU government. It will be where all the decisions are taken and the members of parliament are the ones who are appointing the President. The president can after that appoint his cabinet, which will have much the same purpose as the commission does today.
The EU supreme court will also be given more powers. It can rule any decision by the parliament unconstitutional if it consider anything to be against the EU constitution, which will be discussed later. It is also above all the local courts when it comes to things that has something to do with the federal level.
How to Elect Members of Parliament
The parliament consists of one member from every state. This member is elected through general elections in each of the states. The candidate with most votes wins the seat. To avoid “tactical voting” the candidate who get least votes, gets to give them away to another candidate with a similar opinion to him, and the second last candidate gets to give away his votes, and so on till there are only 2 candidates left and the one with most votes then gets the seat. Sounds complicated but it is really quite simple.
There will also be 20% extra seats in the parliament which are not choosed by single states, but by the EU as a whole. Ie the candidate that gets second in every state, get to choose a party to which he is giving his votes to. All these votes will add up and the remaining seats in parliament will be divided equally compared to the percentage of votes that are given. So this mean that it does matter if two candidates in a state are really close or if they are not.
The Constitution
In the constitution it shall be outlined exactly what areas the EU parliament can take decisions on. Its powers should however be kept to a minimum. It could be limited to trade, environmental (only questions that matters for the whole of EU/the World though), security etc. It should also be clearly outlined how much the EU parliament can do within each of these areas, all to avoid that the government gets too much power. The constitution should also outline all the rights of every citizen, however this would only be the most basic rights that every democracy must have, and to protect them from getting an EU government that is controlling too much. It will however be up to the states when it comes to everything else.
One important principle also is that everything within the union should be open. Anyone should be able to request any protocol from any meeting, or any email/letter sent out/to any federal agency or the parliament. This to make it harder for corruption and to see how every decision is made, if someone wishes so.
Another thing is that every state must accept any other EU citizen as a citizen of their states with the same rights as anyone else in that state, if he/she wishes so.
To amend the constitution it would have to be approved in one of three ways:
The parliaments of 90% of the states, and 90% of the EU parliament votes in favor.
The parliaments of 70% of the states, and 70% of the EU parliament votes in favor, in two consecutive election periods.
Referendums are held in all the states, with a majority of the people in every single state passing the amendment. One single state can stop it.
Comments
I do realize this will probably never happen, but I like the idea. Also, of course there are many unsolved questions but this is just a general outline. The idea is to make EU a central and powerful union only for a few things, and then let it be up to every member state exactly how far they want to take their EU membership.
Probably lots of things which were not that clear too, so please ask ;)
Discuss. |
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| Yoepus |
Can you sum it up in two lines or less for me?
I'm in a crunch today;) :p |
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| St_Andrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by Yoepus
Can you sum it up in two lines or less for me?
I'm in a crunch today;) :p |
You suck!
"The idea is to make EU a central and powerful union only for a few things, and then let it be up to every member state exactly how far they want to take their EU membership."
Also that make new smaller states instead of the current countries ;) |
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| metalgearsolid |
| So what you want is that states replace countries such as france and sweden. So that will definately not work. If I think i understand what you are trying to say. But than again I might be wrong. |
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| St_Andrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by metalgearsolid
So what you want is that states replace countries such as france and sweden. So that will definately not work. If I think i understand what you are trying to say. But than again I might be wrong. |
Well, you clearly didn't read the whole thing ;) And why wouldn't it work (beside the point that the ppl would never agree to it). This is more of a theoretical debate, as I said it will most likely never happen! |
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| metalgearsolid |
| quote: | Originally posted by St_Andrew
Well, you clearly didn't read the whole thing ;) And why wouldn't it work (beside the point that the ppl would never agree to it). This is more of a theoretical debate, as I said it will most likely never happen! |
you will never know if you don't try it! Look at the US people said it wouldn't work out but we are still here, though we might not be the same coming in 50yrs or so. |
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| St_Andrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by metalgearsolid
you will never know if you don't try it! Look at the US people said it wouldn't work out but we are still here, though we might not be the same coming in 50yrs or so. |
Well the point is that i think it would work very good if the system finally got in place. But thing is that it would be very hard to get ppl to agree to it. Get it? |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
sorry dude, but i have never read so many impossible notions & implausible suggestions in my life (well, since the bible anywayz ;) )
i'll just go with 1 problem coz im off to play games for a bit, but i would like to know how you would separate, re-distribute, re-organise, re-create etc the scarce resources and infrastructure in these member states.
its taken how long to get this far with the EU? please. your ideas mean well but are a logistical nightmare, on so many levels. |
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| George Smiley |
| The EU is already divided up into segemnts for the voting constituencies for the European elections. The UK just attempted to give them each a parliament a la Scotland and Wales (and Northern Ireland when they behave!) but the referendum in the North East (where they tested people's opinions to it) failed miserably and the whole plans have been shelved |
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| Subey |
What you are asking is for people who have carried forth the flag of their nation through strife and wars to lay it down willingly.
The nation is such a focal point of people's identity that I don't think many people can really conceive of it as being a hindrance to the evolution of identity.
I think the solution exists in the order in which people classify their identity.
For me it's
1. I am me
2. I am a human male
3. I am a westerner
4. I am a canadian
Are people willing to drop #4 from their foundation? |
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| George Smiley |
| quote: | Originally posted by Subey
What you are asking is for people who have carried forth the flag of their nation through strife and wars to lay it down willingly.
The nation is such a focal point of people's identity that I don't think many people can really conceive of it as being a hindrance to the evolution of identity.
I think the solution exists in the order in which people classify their identity.
For me it's
1. I am me
2. I am a human male
3. I am a westerner
4. I am a canadian
Are people willing to drop #4 from their foundation? |
Well the thing is, a lot of people show more 'loyalty' to their region than nation. Eg obviously in the UK we have Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and they all have loyalty to those regions rather than Britain except 55% of Northern Ireland of course! TYo an extent England is similar. But in England a lot of people identify with their region more than country eg Yorkshire peeople (like me!) are very proud of their region (except West Yorkshire cos thats full of twats, and funnily enuf where I live now...erm) and basically have nothing in common with Southerners |
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| St_Andrew |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
sorry dude, but i have never read so many impossible notions & implausible suggestions in my life (well, since the bible anywayz ;) )
i'll just go with 1 problem coz im off to play games for a bit, but i would like to know how you would separate, re-distribute, re-organise, re-create etc the scarce resources and infrastructure in these member states.
its taken how long to get this far with the EU? please. your ideas mean well but are a logistical nightmare, on so many levels. |
Well, much of these problems already exists today, the only problem would be that some cooperation that is on a national level today must be reworked. Today this is more or less only non political agencies, that could be kept anyway, with a volenteerly cooperation, or much of it could even be scraped or continued on a state/federal level. Of course it would be some major problems to switch systems. In the long run tho it would be a lot more efficent and better for everyone, since every state would get a hell of a lot more power, and different regions wouldn't have to wait for other less progressive regions to impose reform, and more conservative regions wouldn't have to join any part of the EU membership/national cooperation they didn't want to join, and so on there are many clear benefits here.
Looking at how much my own country has changed the last 10 years I don't think the structual reform would be impossible. |
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