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The EU has a parliament, a Council/Senate (representing the states), a President, and a Supreme Court (the ECJ). The EU, like the US, is a union of states. I contend that in most issues the US is too consolidated. But the EU might be too dissipated. Each risks a different danger. To be sure, if the tendency of a federal union of republics is toward consolidation, as evinced in the US, the EU ought to be applauded for leaving large chunks of powers at the state level. However, the risk of dissolution may also be realizable in the case of the EU precisely because it has probably not yet crossed the threshold in the balance of power wherein a sufficient proportion is at the federal level–such that consolidation would be the most pressing danger. In other words, the EU might have a different risk management scenerio than the US had as it consolidated from roughly 1860 through the mid twentieth century. The danger of dissolution in the EU could be related to the proclivity of state leaders there to keep a domain “in house” simply for the sake of doing so. The root cause could be the residue from twentieth century European nationalisms, which spawned two world wars and thwarted the development of a union of the states until the last decade of that century. In other words, an ideology of “country” is still extant for most Europeans. That word, I submit, is overused.

As the volcanic ash-cloud from Iceland was bringing flights in the EU to a virtual halt, airline officials were having a hard time hiding their frustration with the situation. On a conference call on April 18, 2010 with airlines hosted by Eurocontrol, the Brussels-based agency that coordinates air traffic management in the EU, one airline representative sharply chastised civil aviation authorities from the states for being inconsistent in applying flight restrictions and stressed that the flight bans were creating “a serious economic issue for us.” Having Eurocontrol responsible for coordinating air traffic in the EU while permitting the states to control their own air space is tantamount to tying the hands of the people at Eurocontrol while expecting them to use their hands to direct air traffic. In other words, the structure is that of a double-bind. While there is some benefit to differential policies across the EU in matters such as an ash-cloud that affects different regions of the EU differently, it makes little sense to open or close airspaces the size of Montana (Germany), Arizona (Spain), and Texas (France). That is, it would be like having each state in the US differentially open and close its airspace. Idaho might be open while Wyoming is closed. Imagine the logistical nightmare for the FAA, particularly should that agency be responsible nonetheless for coordinating the airspace in the US. While it might give the residents of a state of the EU a sense of pride in hearing that “German airspace is closed,” I submit that it is actually quite silly to carve up commercial airspace in such small units (with respect to the airspaces of the EU and US). Transportation technology has relativized state airspaces on both sides of the Atlantic. Whereas it once took days to cross Germany or Montana, today most flights count either state as one of several to be flown over. Of course, states like Texas and California are large enough to support a sufficient number of air-routes to be considered “air-markets” in themselves. However, such a status ought not be overdone, particularly when the FAA has the responsibility of coordinating air traffic across the US region.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/world/europe/19ash.html?ref=world