European integration has proceeded
in fits and starts since Robert Shuman proposed the European Coal and Steel
Cooperative in 1950 so Europe could keep an eye on Germany’s military in the wake
of World War II. Euroatom and the European Economic Community came in 1957, and
the EC, which consisted of the three organizations, existed until 1993. Since
then, the European Union too has progressed step-wise, with some steps
backwards, such as when Britain seceded from the Union. Whereas the U.S. made
the leap from a supranational alliance, the Articles of Confederation, to a
federal government all at once in 1789, the way of the E.U. in terms of dual
sovereignty and adding states has been incremental. Perhaps throughout its 31
year history, as of its federal election in 2024, the E.U. was being pulled in
two directions. Some forces have led the E.U. to gain competencies over time,
whereas other forces could be described as “states’ rights,” anti-federalist, or
Euroskeptic tendencies. If dominant, those forces would ultimately lead to the
dissolution of the federal union, whereas the former forces would lead to its
consolidation. After thirty years, the U.S. too was more subject to the centripetal
forces than those for ever closer union. From the subsequent history of the
U.S., it is perfectly legitimate to ask whether the E.U. too will lean so close
too to political (and economic) consolidation too by the time that union is
over 200 years old. Like Europeans today, the Americans of the 1820s would
never have dreamed that the federal level would be so dominate over the states,
which were still regarded as countries.
The full essay is at "The E.U.: Pulled in Two Directions."
