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A Federal System for a European Future

"Reflecting the will of the peoples and the States of Europe to build a common future, this Constitution establishes a Union, within which the policies of the Member States shall be coordinated, and which shall administer certain common competences on a federal basis".
The first drafts of the European Constitution began with this sentence.[1]

The version now to be ratified contains the notion "in the Community way", and unfortunately the European structures of power and resposibility depicted in this treaty are far from transparency and clearness.[2]

However, an efficient "European Federation" cannot be founded on the classical structure of 25 member states for two reasons:
  1. The differences in population between the members - from Malta with 400 000 to Germany with 82 million inhabitants - would lead to unbalances and malfunctions within the system.
  2. Some members have so many inhabitants or are so heterogeneous that they have formed or are forming federal structures on their own. The different interests within such a member would not be respected in a federation of 25 states.
That is why the last step of European intagration can only be forming a state consisting of the following three levels:
  • The European level carries out as little as possible functions, for example foreign and defence politics.
  • The Provinces are administrative units similar to US-American States, Belgian Communities or German Bundesländer.
  • The Cantons subdivide the Provinces, as Départements, Counties oder Landkreise.
This site depicts a federal European concept.
         
 
Footnotes  
1 The European Convention: Draft of Arictles 1 to 16 of the Constitution Treaty of 2003-02-06, Art. 1 (1)
http://register.consilium.eu.int/pdf/en/03/cv00/cv00528en03.pdf (2004-12-10).
2 The European Convention: Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe of 2003-07-18, Art. 1 (1)
http://european-convention.eu.int/docs/Treaty/cv00850.en03.pdf (2005-03-07).


Technical Note  
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© Stefan Veith; eurofederalism.net, 2004 ... 2007: 2007-01-01