European Union is a much better name. So lets continue with the integration.
A few things to start:
- Commission should be directly elected by the people
- Parliament should take more responsibility and agency
- Parliament limitations should be lifted
- The council should gradually abdicate to the parliament
- Rigid rules for term limits for all elected EU officials for all institutions.
There are more and the road is long, but it is the right direction.
The commission doesn’t need direct elections, but at least it should be elected by the EP and not around three corners (citizens -> national parliaments -> national governments -> commission), each of which including bribery and lobbying.
There are more and the road is long, but it is the right direction.
Doubt. Every attempt in history to centralise power in Europe has failed
Which attempts have been similar to the EU, and not just conquests? The closest I can think of is maybe the Habsburg dynasty, and I think we can agree that that had its own unique issues going on
Napoleon is the closest. A lot of the legal, judicial, and administrative civil code remains today.
In what fucking world was Napoleon’s attempt not a series of conquests?
European history all is just conquests
…so there has not been an attempt like the EU
There has. The European Communities and the EEC. Neither were attempts to create a federation like US, China or Russia…
A federation can have different levels of centralisation.
If it ends up with a president then it’s fucked. Single point of failure. A honeycomb structure of separate cells is much stronger and harder to take over, unlike a blob
Shouldn’t it be about time to form the united earth government and start reaching for the stars?
Yes, you are right. The EU has proven so far to be a good start, as it’s been a decent compromise between the great powers and the smaller countries. Getting that balance right is really hard, as the clusterfuck that is the UN proves.
Sure. And I mean country size wouldn’t even be an issue since we’re getting rid of the concept of countries. It’d be one earth. At the size of the earth. (And maybe a few separatist regions. 😅)
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It sure will be.
I mean I’m from Central Europe. From ethnicity you probably can’t tell if someone is from my country or one of the neighbouring ones. And culture here in Germany also varies a lot. Do I feel more connected to someone in the south of my own country, than to someone a few kilometers away in a seperate country? I’m not sure. I don’t think so.
I mean saying things like “I’m from the USA” is nice and all. But I bet I’m going to ask a follow-up question immediately, because it’s such a vast and diverse country. So I think we might as well skip that step and directly go for the region?!
Dunno. The borders as we have them feel pretty arbitrary to me. And I really like the perks we got here with Europe and the Schengen Area. I can just go whereever I like, go shopping, a weekend trip and don’t need to care at all. No border controls, no worrying about how much alcohol and cigarettes I bring. I can pay in the same currency. Don’t need to worry about roaming cost on my smartphone… I think it’s awesome to not have borders.
We see similar stuff with the internet, which just isn’t bound to physical location as much. I really enjoy how it spans the entire globe and I get all kinds of freedoms.
Now we could as well get rid of the remaining stuff I do need to worry about when crossing borders. And I guess we could save a lot of money by getting rid of redundancy in administration. We could also pool money for military stuff and whatever. Which is probably going to be way more effective than everyone doing their own thing.
Also makes it easier for business. I mean as of now you need to abide by all kinds of different standards in different countries, get your product re-certified in imperial units to make some lunatics happy… That’s just wasted effort IMO.
I mean we could keep them as administrative zones. But we’d keep all the craziness baked in like towns with the border randomly traversing them. Someone’s living room being in a different administrative zone than the kitchen, enclaves, borders separating a cultural identity and mushing them together with other people based on politics and religion…
So… Why wouldn’t we get rid of them? I think they’re detrimental to the cause. The more you like differences by physical location, the more you should consider just keeping the old concept.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Earth
What’s your favourite?
I’m partial to the first one, just maybe mute the colours a bit:
I’m rather amused that there’s no land there. I’m sure there’s lots of reasons, like not being able to accurately put all landmass on there, there being arguments about why certain landmass is the focal point etc. but without any land it feels like the flag belongs to the oceans.
“Screw the landlubbers, they only cause problems anyway.”
Maybe by the time we have a world government there won’t be any land for people to get uppity about.
Wow, great stuff. I think more than I do like any specific one of them, I like the fact how many different ones we got. And their stories.
I mean the important part in the symbolry isn’t how the solar system is made up, but in this instance connected to us humans. I guess I’m leaning more towards the proposals representing peace, unity… as well. Though this one is very appealing on the visual level.
No thanks.
We don’t want to build the setup for fascists to take over like in the US.
Why would a more integrated EU allow fascists to take over?
The fascists are anti EU and currently seem to be rapidly gaining power in national governments.
Yeah be we can do it our way, with blackjack and hookers!
Jesus, it’s just way to say it needs to be a federation with more centralized government. No one is saying we should copy any specific ideas from US.
EU is falling behind because it’s unable to effectively work together for a common goal. Every country is constantly trying to protect its interests. We can’t stop Russians from entering EU because Italy and Spain is blocking it. We can’t ban gasoline cars because Germany is blocking it. More centralized government could solve those issues and let Europe compete with US and China.
I agree that it’s needed in this day and age, when we are faced with dictators.
However more centralized powers have historically led to war within Europe. Think about World war I and II, the Balkan wars, the Prussian wars, Napoleonic wars, the Seven years war, war of the Spanish succession and so on. This is the reason the EU is set up the way it is, all countries can influence decisions and there’s no dominant power overruling others. So it’s a bit of a double edged sword. Centralization helps to suppress cultural differences but doesn’t solve them.
Totally. I think huge progress was made in the last couple of decades but nationalism is still very strong in many countries and most people are still definitely not ready to put the good of Europe ahead of their national interests. Federation is needed but Europe is still not ready for it. Maybe in couple more decades but we’ll be lucky if EU survives for that long.
no it’s fucking not
Did everyone forgot we already have idea and movement of EF https://federalists.eu/
Ventotene has just launched a new call to build the United States of Europe
Ventotene is once again at the heart of the debate on Europe’s future. On the Italian island that is a symbol of European federalism, the declaration “It is time to build the United States of Europe” was adopted and signed on 30 August 2026, promoted by the Third Jean Monnet Action Committee for the United States of Europe.
