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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

"When a leader's only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now." The White House issued this written statement five days after Qaddafi had turned in violence on his own people who were protesting unarmed in the street. Nearly three weeks after the first day that Qaddafi had lost legitimacy, President Obama tried to raise the pressure on the Libyan dictator further by talking about “a range of potential options, including potential military options."  Yet by then the politics of such intervention were getting more complicated by the day, according to The New York Times. The paper reported that critics were contending that the White House was too much concerned about perceptions, and that the administration was too squeamish on the military options on account of the preceding administration's invasion of Iraq based on a claim of danger to the United States from Saddam's access to WMD. Even the critics acknowledged that the best outcome militarily would be for the United States to join other nations or international organizations rather than go it alone. About a week after the president's hint of military options, the E.U. decided not to impose a No Fly Zone. A few days later, the Arab League, which, according to The Hoffington Post, had already barred Libya's government from taking part in League meetings, issued a statement that Qaddafi's government had "lost its sovereignty." The League decided to establish contacts with the rebels' interim government, the National Libyan Council, and to call on the Security Council of the U.N. to impose a No Fly Zone on Libya.  In a statement, the Arab League asked the "United Nations to shoulder its responsibility ... to impose a no-fly zone over the movement of Libyan military planes and to create safe zones in the places vulnerable to airstrikes." It would not be until March 18th, nearly a month after Qaddafi had first had weapons used against the protesters, that the Security Council would act. According to The New York Times, "After days of often acrimonious debate, played out against a desperate clock, as Colonel Qaddafi’s troops advanced to within 100 miles of the rebel capital of Benghazi, Libya, the Security Council authorized member nations to take “all necessary measures” to protect civilians, diplomatic code words calling for military action." Within days, according to The New York Times, "American and European forces began a broad campaign of strikes against the government of . . . Qaddafi, unleashing warplanes and missiles in the first round of the largest international military intervention in the Arab world since the invasion of Iraq."

Analysis:

It is tempting to focus on weighing the pros and cons of the military engagement, including how it came to be decided (It took too long), whether the genuine motive was oil or human rights (I suspect oil), and whether we were being consistent, given abuses against protesters going on in Bahrain and Yemen at the time (We were not, and this points back to the motive being to stop or reverse the gas price increase caused by speculators overstating the supply-impact of political instability--see my essay criticizing corporate political risk analysis and its self-fulfilling prophesy).  To be sure, I weave these matters in my analysis, even if merely implicitly in some of their aspects. However, I prefer to bring out dynamics that might otherwise be overlooked by tracking events on the ground. I approach the Libyan case as a learning opportunity that can be placed in a larger framework oriented to the long-term. Hoping for a progression in the way the human race organizes itself, I look at ways in which international organizations can be reformed and principled leadership involved to protect and defend citizens' human right to life against encroachments by their own governments. As a backdrop to my argument, I submit that the matter of whether or not to engage in a military intervention can be thought of in terms of a window of opportunity with respect to human rights. After discussing this matter, I turn to the matters of international organization reform and principled leadership geared to human rights. While this essay is long, I beg the reader's indulgence in my attempt to proffer a substantive treatment of the subject. My aim is not limited to agreement; I hope my thoughts and reasoning, and even the values I presume therein, stimulate (or provoke) the reader to greater thought and proposals than I can muster.

"This is a window of opportunity for the United States," Zahi Mogherbi, an adviser to the Libyan rebels' interim government, had said weeks before the Security Council's vote. The most basic shift that had occurred in the three weeks between Obama's two statements was from a government turning on its own people to a military divided between being loyal to Qaddafi and supporting of the rebels.  Even though the eventual international fire power is not without merit in protecting Libyan civilians, I contend that it is far easier to justify external military intervention against a government that has turned on its own unarmed people because such a basic betrayal involves a complete loss of legitimacy to rule, as the Obama administration noted in its statement five days after Qaddafi's decision to kill protesters.  By the time the conflict had become one between armed rebels and the military loyal to Qaddafi--that is, what the West was calling a civil war--the window to boldly declare with military force that the Libyan government would not be allowed to turn on its own (unarmed) people--had passed. The protesters had been replaced by rebels. Even if successful external military intervention was still possible, the human rights justification had weakened because a government is on firmer ground in fighting armed rebels. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. To be sure, Qaddafi's forces were killing unarmed civilians "without mercy," according to the tyrant himself; the human rights element had not dissolved even if it was extant with contests taking place on the field of military battle.  Even so, just five days after the government of Qaddafi had turned on the people it was to protect, the claim that Qaddafi had lost the right to rule was being overlaid by the observation that Libya was entering a civil war with two armed camps. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango (though dancing alone or in a group seems to be the rule in techno music nightclubs). The transition from a human rights violation to the more ordinary civil war can occur in days in a fast-moving situation on the ground.  Referring to the window that was rapidly closing for military intervention, Zahi Mogherbi observed of the U.S. Government, "They are not taking it or they are taking their time."

Even if military action being delayed a month so diplomatic channels could result in a U.N. resolution could ultimately facilitate or bring about Qaddafi's downfall (hence such action is worthy of support), President Obama missed the window of opportunity in which he could have claimed to be stopping Qaddafi from violently turning on his own people rather than from winning a civil war by going after civilians and rebels in rebel areas. Talking to reporters on March 19th, the first day of the U.S. involvement in the action, Obama said, "we can’t stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy.” But the president did stand idly by, for roughly a month since Qaddafi's violence on February 21st.

Both the idiosyncratic and bureaucratic features of the diplomatic route that the U.S. and E.U. choose to take point to the need for a new international mechanism if the world wants to protect and defend--in real rather than diplomatic time--the human right of civilians to life when their own respective governments are acting to sever that right. Absent such an expedited mechanism, principled leadership by individual rulers with significant military force are obligated by a universal duty of conscience to fill the gap rather than wait on diplomats to make deals. The basis of such leadership would not be a self-serving desire to be the world's police or to protect some vital resource such as oil; rather, the operative principle would be what David Hume calls the sentiment of moral disapprobation, which all non-sociopath human beings feel at the sight of unjust harm.  I begin with the institutional reform argument, after which I discuss the naturalistic basis of principled leadership.

Governments siding with rebels against a ruler the other rulers don't like is far more familiar in international diplomacy, and thus readily routinized, than is standing on principle with teeth. It is thus no wonder that the politics became more complicated by the day as Obama consulted with allies before the Security Council's vote.  In short, the American president had missed the window when a non-routine idiosycratic decision to stop Qaddafi's violence against the protesters could have been taken in the realm of human rights rather than stopping a civil war. Obama rather quickly faced institutional and diplomatic hurdles involving other countries and international organizations. It could have been predicted, for example, that Hilary Clinton's statement that the matter must be decided by the U.N. would meet with Russia's apparent refusal to go along with even a no fly zone--that is to say, with paralysis until a deal could be made. Such is the nature of routine international relations: both the U.S. and Russia evinced the rigidity and absolutism (my way or the highway) of international diplomacy that eventuates the need for one government to pay off another. In the case involving Libya, the rise in oil prices was undoubtly in the mix motivating a deal; such an inducement, and indeed economic incentives in general, cannot necessarily be relied on to close such deals. Therefore, even if it is successful in particular cases, international diplomacy leading to a Security Council affirmative (i.e., non-vetoed) vote cannot be relied upon even for eventual action. it is certainly not set up to act on the expedited basis that is required to arrest human rights violations in real time. In short, the world needs another mechanism.

 Lest it be thought that the Arab League could be consistently relied on to de-recognize a member government's right to sovereignty, the League's decision against Qaddafi in particular was informed by the particular circumstances at the time.  According to The Hoffington Post, "Amr el-Shobaki, an Egyptian political analyst, said the decision reflects the upheaval in the Arab world, which also includes serious unrest in Bahrain and Yemen as well as rumblings of anti-government dissent in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq. . . . El-Shobaki also said Gadhafi has few real friends among Arab leaders – he has publicly clashed with and insulted many of them, including at Arab League summits." Rather than showing itself as a check on governmental abuse in the Middle East that the world could rely on, the League evinced concern for its members' internal political stability and dislike for a particular ruler. To the extent that the Arab League's request was requisite for the Security Council's vote oking military intervention, not to mention it just being debated, the entire chain of international diplomacy in this case can be seen as highly particular to this case, and therefore not necessarily to be triggered the next time a dictator turns against his or her people.

Therefore, lest mankind be left to the trepidations of indecision at the expense of arresting human rights violations in real time and to the self-interests of rulers as governments around the world and their international organizations hinge on the contingencies particular to the cases, I contend that either a permanent mechanism that involves a transfer of some governmental sovereignty beyond the nation state be designed and instituted, and, in the meantime, that some courageous ruler establishes the precedent of principled leadership to stop an abusive ruler in the act (or at least to divert his attention). While principled leadership would be an advance, it would only be of temporary utility, as leadership is not as long-standing as are institutions. With an accompanying transfer of sufficient governmental sovereignty (while designing a check to prevent abuse), an international institution can act in a timely manner befitting the timeline of human rights violations.

Going through the U.N. as it was initially designed cannot be relied up to stop or mitigate the violation of human rights by rulers unless some governmental sovereignty is transferred to the Security Council (e.g., no vetos). As discussed above, the existence of vetos translates into the need for governments to be essentially paid off, and such deals and the economic constallations conducive to them cannot be relied upon on a consistent basis because they are idiosycratic to the parties of the deals and the particular geo-political and economic context (as well as the particular villain). The combination of the vetos in the Security Council and the sheer diversity of opinion that one can expect in body representing over two hundred countries around the world--specifically, the diverse views on the nature and extent of national sovereignty--make it virtually impossible for the U.N. to proffer effective responses with teeth in real time. In dealing with Qaddafi, it took the Security Council about a month, and who knows but the governments themselves what China and Russia got in exchange for their abstentions.

As an alternative or co-reform, NATO could be reformed in its governance such that an expedited procedure could be devised to assess and possibly respond to a human rights violation by a ruler inside or out of NATO. While weighing the options on Libya, President Obama indicated that bureaucrats at NATO headquarters were weighing the options of the alliance attempting a joint military involvement, but NATO decisions take place in the allies' respective capitols rather than by bureaucrats at NATO.  This arrangement of power in the alliance inexorably makes for slow decision-making, even when a window of opportunity is brief. Because the diversity of opinion is likely to be less among NATO members than at the UN Security Council because NATO is on a smaller scale, that alliance is the more suitable agent to gear any military response to a government "gone rogue."  For this to be possible, some governmental sovereignty must shift to the alliance so a council or office holder standing for the entire alliance can make a timely decision. Just as an external military intervention itself implies that national sovereignty (e.g., of Libya) is not absolute, the same qualification must needs be applied to NATO for it to serve as a viable stand-in for the world in "just saying no" to continued governmental betrayal.

Given the staying power of the absolutist interpretation of national sovereignty, principled leadership might be the best the world could hope in the meantime. For example, the U.S. President or E.U. leaders could boldly make a stand against a government turning against its own people and intervene unilaterally or in a joint U.S./E.U. mission. Each of these unions is empire-scale, and thus would carry a lot of weight in standing on principle not just by saying that a ruler is no long legitimate, but also actively stopping him or her in real time. To be sure, to the rest of the world there would be more credibility involved when such an intervention is not limited to one region or two unions. In the Libyan case, the U.S. was indecisive from the outset and the E.U. was too divided and state rights' oriented.

 Governors of countries can discern the need to act quickly to respond in real time before a window closes from when an issue should be turned over to diplomatic channels. I suspect that the people of the world have come to the conclusion that the doctrine of the absolute right of national sovereignty is antiquated because it is incompatible not only with there being boundaries to legitimate rule, but also with the defense of human rights from across a political border. That is to say, the absolutism is incompatible with the interconnected world's growing demand that human rights be respected even by those in power.  Hence it should be no surprise that the world was dismayed by the shuffling by the Obama administration and the leaders of the E.U. while a dictator was on his own people.  Had the E.U. (or some of its state governments) and/or the U.S. exercised force based on principled leadership before the window of opportunity had closed, the world would have crossed a threshold through the establishment of a new precedent. Governments abusing their own citizens will have been put on notice rather than enabled like alcoholics by ineptitude and indecision until a possible Security Council resolution could be passed. A coalition of the willing is likely to naturally form in little time after a principled leader has taken a stand in action and not just word. Such a leader would not be delayed from endless debate on his or her country's best strategic interest; rather, he or she would act on principle. 

Although nearly a month after Qaddafi first turned on his compatriot protesters, Sarkozy expressed a principled basis for the external military intervention that had begun that day (albeit having waited for the Security Council's action a few days before). Referring to the "murderous madness" of a regime that has "forfeited all its legitimacy," Sarkozy justified the involvement of his airforce fighters as he spoke "in the name of the universal conscience that will not endorse such crimes." A universal conscience is rooted in human nature; such a basis is not conditional on a U.N. resolution. From his state capitol in the fractured E.U., Sarkozy made a principled declaration that resounded like a shot heard round the world--carried almost instantaneously as though by reflex by a mass of humanity "tweeting" through the ether. He asserted that it is our duty to respond to the anguished appeal of civilians.

                                          From NYT, March 20, 2011
What Sarkozy neglected to say, however, was that the appeals had begun roughly a month earlier when Qaddafi's henchmen began shooting down funeral mouners in the streets of Tripoli. To be sure, Libyan protesters-turned-rebels who would have been subject to Qaddafi's "no mercy" were surely saying, "better late than never," as they stood on the dictator's ruined tanks after the first bombing campaign of the international coalition. Even so, a bystander could certainly be pardoned for surmising that the duty to respond without standing idly by had been triggered in America and Europe by a desire to lower gas prices or even to keep them from going still higher than they had in the previous two or three weeks--a consumer-driven political response, in other words. A fundamental moral duty, meaning an obligation to act, that comes from "the universal conscience" of human beings, does not 'click in" as soon as political self-interest chimes in. The window for such a duty as the primary and genuine motive closes as time and selfish considerations are allowed to intercede and the immediacy of the felt-conscience fades. To grasp this point, it is necessary to discuss the nature of the duty's basis in human nature.

 The duty, being as universal as is conscience (i.e., excluding socio-paths and Yankee fans), is sourced in a naturally-felt psychological sentiment of misapprobation, which David Hume argued constitutes moral judgement itself. This sentiment is naturally felt in watching or learning of unjust harm, such as from a governor of a country turning against his own unarmed people by wantonly having them killed simply for protesting. Of course, while still active in the case of civilians, this feeling/principle is mitigated when it is armed rebels who are being killed--hence the window of opportunity for a human rights-based principled leadership. It is natural for any human being to be filled with utter disgust at the squalid sight of innocent civilians being shot by government troops. So it is also natural for a person to want to step in and stop the atrocious harm at once. The natural propensity of compassion manifesting in instantaneous word and deed is also evinced in a person who pulls a rapist off a young woman on a city street while people passing watch while quietly conferring with each other on what, if anything, they can or should do before they continue on with their plans. Such bystanders, unfortunately all too common in the world, are mere epigones in the human race; they are hardly natural leaders even if they have gained the power of political office by having woven words of saccarine silk. The person taking it upon himself to pull the rapist off the defenseless victim, on the other hand, is a natural leader in touch with his own humanity; he is thus able to act with humanity. He is not presuming to be his own police force for the city; rather, such a person is instantiating the highest that humanity has to offer: caritas naturalis, seu benevolentia universalis (natural higher human love raised high rather than remaining low in lust for power, money, or sex; that is, love as universal benevolence).

In conclusion, were the world not so focused on Qaddafi during his escapades, we might have used the ferociousness of his violence against civilians to evaluate not only the way other rulers reacted (or failed to react), but also what institutional reforms could have expedited the process befitting the nature of human rights violations and how principled leadership could override political expediency and bureaucratic meandering, even if only in theory yet. To be sure, principled leadership is contingent and short-lived, given the nature of leadership itself. For this reason, even in the event of such leadership manifesting and establishing a precedent, the world would be well advised to continue to work toward an international institutional mechanism that has some real teeth in protecting unarmed citizens from their own rulers. Even in the excitment over the Security Council's sanctioning of "all necessary means" to protect Libyan civilians, the world would be wise to ask: how could the process have been better from the standpoint of defending human rights? The key to the institutional reform, the world would realize, is the same as the rationale for removing a sitting governor: the qualification of national sovereignty from the absolutism advocated by Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, respectively. For these two thinkers, only God's law can restrain the power of a human sovereign, and then most probably in the ruler's afterlife. According to Hobbes, for example, the human sovereign--the Leviathan, or king of the proud--has the exclusive right within his kingdom to interpret divine law (even such authority was thought by Hobbes necessary to avert civil war in the contentious seventeenth century in Britain). In any case, political theory in the twenty-first century need not be held hostage by an antiquated theory devised in and for a very different context and distant time. Technology alone has made the world much more interdependent, and thus in need of stronger international agency, albeit with adequate checks and balances to prevent abuse of the added authority.

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Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/world/middleeast/08policy.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=todayspaper
Jim Michaels, "Is Libyan 'Window of Opportunity' Closing?," USA Today, March 10, 2011, p. 6A.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/12/arab-league-asks-un-for-libya-no-fly-zone_n_834975.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/africa/18nations.html?hp
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/03/19/france.libya.meeting/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/world/africa/20libya.html?hp

In the wake of Greece’s announcement that it would indeed need a bailout, Angela Merkel’s coalition partners suddenly got cold feet. Germany was slated to provide 8.4 billion euros out of the EU’s total contribution of 30 billion. Leaders of the FDP feared that the payout would ruin that party’s hopes of providing tax relief.  The German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle,told ZDF television, “It has yet to be agreed that Greece will actually get assistance from Europe at all.” He added: “We will not write a blank cheque”. FDP deputy leader Andreas Pinkwart said it would be “a slap in the face of German employees” if the government would give billions of euros to Athens, and tell Germans “there’s no money left for easing their tax burden.” The FDP’s  finance expert Hermann Otto Solms also criticized Finance Minister Schaeuble’s plans. “It was wrong to put the pot of honey in the middle of the table right from the start,” he said. “That was a signal for the Greeks to just help themselves.” The right thing to do would have been to offer Greece no help and direct them straight to the IMF, Solms told the Passauer Neue Presse daily.
The government’s role in the rescue package also received criticism from Chancellor Merkel’s second coalition partner, the CSU party, which is based in the region of Bavaria. CSU parliamentary leader Hans-Peter Friedrich said his party would prefer Athens to leave the eurozone and solve its problems by “re-introducing its former national currency, the Drachme, at a devalued rate of exchange.”  Friedrich’s opinion was echoed by economist Joachim Starbaty from Tuebingen University. Greece was “no longer competitive within the eurozone,” he said. “It’s impossible for the country to repay its debts and the loans it now receives because its economy will be unable to accumulate surpluses for a long time “, he said. “Devaluing a national currency is the only chance for Greece to regain its competitiveness. Starbaty announced he would lodge an official complaint with Germany’s Constitutional Court should parliament in Berlin give the green light to the bailout package.

However, the German financial houses were very powerful at the time, and they could have pushed Merkel into going ahead with the deal anyway. Germany’s financial institutions held some €28 billion, or $37 billion, in Greek bonds.  About half of it had been downgraded by S & P to junk.  Indeed, 14 billion is more than the 8.3 billion that Germany is set to pay as part of the EU rescue. Deutsche Bank’s chief financial officer, Stefan Krause, indicated that the bank would feel the effects of a deeper Greek crisis. “We don’t have much exposure to Greece directly. We are not concerned,” Mr. Krause said during a conference call with analysts. He added, “We could not completely isolate ourselves if the situation gets worse.”

Analysis:

Germany’s direct exposure to Greek debt provides another reason why the Greece's financial problems were very much Europe’s problems. “It’s not just a question of paying for Greece’s luxury pensions. There are intrinsically strong German interests as well,” said Alessandro Leipold, former acting director of the I.M.F.’s European Department. Even so, the politics within Germany shouldn’t be ignored either. The ability of one state to pull out of the EU’s attempted bailout of another of its states illustrates the EU’s vulnerability in having so much authority continue to reside with the state governments.  Ultimately, the risk is one of dissolution of the union.  To be sure, giving the EU too much power would risk consolidation–something that the US is in risk of “achieving.”  The trick is to create and perpetuate a federal balance of power, wherein the two governments for each bit of territory can check each other.  The FDP’s interest in giving the residents in the state of Germany tax relief suggests that states will indeed look out for themselves at the expense of other states, even if one is going bankrupt.  Starbaty’s reference to the “eurozone” ignores that the EU is not just a “zone” wherein there is the euro currency.  Even for the states having the euro, the EU is much more.  In fact, becuase the EU’s ECJ (European Court of Justice) has decided that EU basic law trumps state basic law, it is not clear to me that the  Starbaty is going to the correct court.  That is, an EU court has the jurisdiction to decide on the EU’s assistance to one of its states, even if the EU is counting on its state governments for the funding.  There has been such reliance in US history, and as Hamilton attested, it did not work out well.  Unfortunately, getting away from that problem led the US on a track too close to consolidation.  

Perhaps the US and EU can learn from each other.  The EU is now where the US was in its first fifty or so years.  That is, the EU has passed the Articles of Confederation stage, as the Articles did not have a legislature (i.e., EU Parliament), a President, an executive branch (i.e., the European Commission), and a supreme court (i.e., the ECJ).  Even so, the EU’s governmental institutions are weak relative to those of the states.  This makes it difficult for the EU to effectively respond to a crisis in one of its states because another state, such as Germany, can thwart a viable solution.  In short, the EU needs to move closer to the middle in achieving a federal balance of power.  As the US has already overshot it, perhaps the EU can showcase how federalism at the empire level (i.e., a union consisting of nation-states) can work.

Sources:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5506597,00.html ; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/business/global/29banks.html?pagewanted=1

In the fall of 2008, European politicians were pointing to the bad finance in America as putting the entire world at risk financially.  In May, 2010,  however, the E.U. had its own financial crisis and bailout. The added problem in arriving at a coordinated response given the relative power held by the state governments meant that the debt crisis in the E.U. could have been the contagion more likely to spread.  Whereas in the U.S., the U.S. Government’s treasury secretary and the Federal Reserve Chairman orchastrated the bailout at a dizzying pace, the more balanced federalism of the E.U. meant that the leaders of the state governments were the active players. In other words, even though the E.U. evinces a more balanced division of power between the union and state governments than is is the case in the decentralized-consolidated modern incarnation of American "federalism," the ability of the Europeans to tackle the problem of several of its states hemmoraging in public debt attests to the messiness that is inherent in a well-balanced federal system.  Even so, the consolidated condition of American government meant that states in trouble such as Florida, Illinois and California had to fend for themselves because neither the U.S. Government nor the Federal Reserve was under pressure to come to their aid. The Federal Reserve, for example, had printing hundreds of billions of dollars to assuage the U.S. Government's growing appetite for debt. However, when U.S. Senators asked Chairman Bernanke about doing likewise for the trouble state governments, he replied that the Fed was not autorized to do it. This asymmetry itself pushes the system even closer to the consolidated end of the political spectrum. As some of the U.S. Constitutional Convention delegates warned in 1787 even when the U.S. consisted of just thirteen republics, it is difficult for a central government to have sufficient energy throughout an empire-scale "extended republic."  The E.U. following its first fifty years was better able to cover the inherent diversity there, yet not yet sufficient to support its unified aims (such as a common currency backed up by coordinated fiscal policy).

In short, the financial problems that occasioned the huge financial bailouts is hardly an American quagmire.  Just as the E.U. and U.S. have different divisions of power in their applications of modern federalism, the processes and solutions themselves must undoubtedly differ as well. In the end, hard choices irrespective of the federal systems involved will need to be made at the expense of instant gratification in order for a sustainable (i.e., real) fiscal trajectory in the West to be realized.  The struggle is perhaps against expediency in a time of apparent plenty.

In mid May, 2010, European Union leaders approved a rescue package worth 750 billion euros (nearly $1 trillion) to buttress weaker states such as Greece, Portugal and Spain.  The funds were contributed by state governments on account of resistence to the EU itself raising the money through direct taxation in the states using the euro as their currency. In early 2011, Sarcozy and Merkel proposed greater EU coordination of fiscal policies in states using the euro. The proposal was shot down by Belgium's prime minister as a threat to the social agreement in his state. Whereas such resistence to giving the EU more governmental sovereignty is typically highlighted in news reports, I contend that simply having a common currency inexorably exercises a subtle though gradual force in the direction of further integration manifesting in more governmental sovereignty being transferred from the state governments to that of the EU. It is not always easy to see the changing contours of a forest when one is used to studying leaves.

According to David Marsh, the euro was intended to complete the European program of liberalized cross-border trade, promote the old dream of political unity, rival the dollar as an international reserve currency and — the most complicated objective — prevent an enlarged Germany’s domination of Europe by bringing its currency under European control.”  Before the euro went into effect, Chancellor Kohl of the state of Germany noted that a monetary union without a corresponding political union would be “a castle in the air.” His remark echoed the concerns of the Bundesbank, his state’s statutorily independent central bank, that unless there were greater political and economic anti-inflationary discipline and solidarity among weaker and stronger states, the monetary union would be doomed. I contend that this pressure for greater solidarity or coordination via EU governmental institutions is a pressure that is inherent in the monetary union, whose gravity pulls the EU toward further integration until the equilibrium point (with the monetary union) is reached.

To be sure, the EU was at a precarious place in 2010 amid the debt crisis and the attempt by the EU collectively to come to the rescue. Even though EU institutions had acquired a significant amount of governmental sovereignty, it was less than what was being required in responding to a common currency in trouble. A currency in any federal system requires some degree of fiscal consistency among the governments subject to the currency.  In the want of adequate means, the government representing the system as a whole can over-react out of sheer frustration. Beyond the emergency fund, for example, the EU Commission wanted the state governments to submit their budgets for approval before appropriating funds. This would have represented more political consolidation than is the case in the US. Euroskeptics would have hit the ceiling.

To the Europeans who deny the political or governmental aspects at the EU level (i.e., the ECJ, the EU Parliament, and the EU’s various political offices), fiscal coordination represents an infringement on the “national sovereignty” of the “member states.”  Even so, the need for greater fiscal coordination or consistency for the euro inexorably backs the even the Euroskeptics the uncomfortable position of agreeing to more sovereignty being transferred from the states to the union. The invisible integrative forces in monetary union do not bend to denial; instead, they bend it. So while the skeptics might get the headlines today, the extend of union even in 2010 presaged ever closer union even if the pattern involves fits and starts rather than a linear trajectory. In other words, it is best to have a long-term perspective in evaluating the implications of newsworthy events on the EU.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/opinion/18marsh.html?hp

2010 was not a good year for the Belgium government. The governing coalition fell apart, sparking fears that Wallonia and Flanders really could not govern mutually in a federal government at the state level (something that no American state has attempted). In early 2011, the typically European integrationist Belgium government found itself at odds with a Franco-German proposal for greater fiscal coordination at the EU level for the states that had adopted the euro as their currency; the Belgium prime minister had to protect the Belgium social agreement because that was part of the deal that allowed him to step in as prime minister when forming a government was such a difficult problem. Belgium, it may be said, was suffering existentially. Should it split up, go to a looser confederation within the EU, or maintain the status quo in spite of the difficulties?

As I understand it, only 30% of the Flemish voted for the NVA in the election on June 13, 2010, so less than a majority in Flanders support splitting Belgium into two states in the EU.  I suspect there would be resistance in the European Council to Belgium becoming two states in the EU because that would mean more representation in the EU for what is now Belgium.  There was a similar resistance in the US when the southern region of Illinois wanted to seceed from Illinois and form a new state in that union.  In that case, there would be four US Senators where now there are two.

In terms of the Belgian election results of 2010, it has been typical that four parties have been needed to form a governing coalition. Therefore, the NVA won’t be able to unilaterally split Belgium up. The socialists, for example, support a united Belgium.  I don’t think the NVA’s idea of a confederation rather than a federal system in Belgium would work.  I can’t think of many cases of a federal system becoming a confederation. Power doesn’t seem to work that way.  In any case, that Belgium is itself a state in a federal system mitigates the difference that such a change would make.  Because Illinois (and California, for that matter) is so diverse politically by region, I have thought that it should have a federal system, perhaps even confederal; Illinois itself would be mainly representing the states in the US Senate and regulating relations between the states (e.g., funding highways).  Belgium would have a similar role were Flanders and Wallonia to become members of a Belgian confederation.  I think it is possible, though not probably. Kant says the same thing about the kingdom of ends, given the pathology of self-love. that is, possible but not probable. He thought world federation could bring peace. 

In reading about Belgian politics, it does seem to me that from a governance perspective splitting Belgium might not be a bad idea.  It has been rather rough governing as it is.  At some point, I would think people would ask themselves if it is worth all the trouble.  Flanderscould become a province of the Netherlands and Wallonia could easily join France. That both regions of Belgium would still be in the EU lessens the magnitude of the change. Similarly, by the way, were the Middle East to form a federation perhaps the fight over land in Isreal and Palestine would be to a certain extent cooled because it wouldn't matter as much.  An empire-level/scale federal system can make what seems to be intractable problems actually not so important, and thus the respective positions not so rigid.

Living in America, I have a very outside perspective on what is going on Europe, not to mention in Belgium. However, sometimes such a perspective can be useful to people otherwise focused in on the daily problems of governing on the ground. It is easy for any of us to take our poltical artifices too seriously.  Political entities are but dust, and to dust they will return.  We ought not get too attached to the sandcastles we build. They, like us, are mortal. Put another way, politics is naturally a sea of change, constantly churning.  So too are we. The political sand castles we build are thus apt to change or be changed with after one too many tides.  In the mixture of dynamic politics and static polities, it is wise to periodically adapt the latter to take account of the former; otherwise, a political titalwave might just inundate one’s weakened sandcastle.

On March 1, 2011, the European Court of Justice, the EU's Supreme Court, declared illegal the widespread practice of charging men and women different rates for insurance, setting in motion an overhaul of how life, auto and health policies are written across Europe. Although tied to commerce, the ruling involves non-economic elements as per the high court's citation of the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights, which enumerates 14 categories on which discrimination is prohibited; sex is the first. A separate provision states that "equality between men and women must be ensured in all areas." Because fundamental rights go to the core of what a political domain stands for, at least in the case of a republic, an implication is that the EU is indeed a political federal state, rather than simply a WTO for Europe. The fact that the states of the EU must abide by the ECJ's ruling on the fundamental rights means that some governmental sovereignty has indeed shifted from the state governments (and their respective constitutions) to the EU.  Like the US, the EU is a federal system of governance characterized at its core by dual governmental sovereignty, which in turn is sourced in popular sovereignty.  Other, less fundamental, implications can also be drawn from an analysis of the ruling.

Ironically, the court's decision means that women drivers will pay higher premiums (possibly up to 25% more) to be treated equally; premiums for young men would fall. Hitherto, European insurance companies could use the statistical correlation between being male (and young) and risky driving to charge young men higher premiums.  Positive correlation is not causation, however; there is no known causal relationship between a female biology and relatively risk-averse driving. The advocate general, Juliane Kokott, argued that there was "no compelling evidence that women live longer or drive more safely because they are biologically women. Underlying factors affecting longevity or prudent driving—such as drinking habits or the desire to engage in risky behavior—might be associated statistically with one or other sex. But that, she said, doesn't mean insurers can choose a price for a particular customer based on sex," acccording to The Wall Street Journal.

Generally speaking, David Hume argued in the eighteenth century that we don't really understand causal connections even when we think we do. In other words, we tend to make assumptions--essentially over-extending our minds from what we do in fact know. I would add that presumption itself might be hardwired in the human mind even in simply being able to have a coherent (i.e., unitary) consciousness.  Unavoidably, we make assumptions about what we perceive in order for the world to make sense.

In addition to the political and philosophical implications, the case provides an illustration of the nature of business regarding regulatory obstacles. In short, it is in the nature of a profit-seeking machine to get around the dams.  The Wall Street Journal reports that European insurers "had been bracing" for the March 1 ruling. Philip Jarvis of the law firm Allen & Overy in London "says insurers may have to collect more individual data on policy holders to compensate for the loss of sex as a quick dividing line. That could accelerate, for instance, the adoption of vehicle "black boxes" or other devices to plug into onboard diagnostic computers to give insurers a direct look at driving habits." Such a closer tie between a driver's premium and his or her actual driving would be fairer than going on market-segmentation correlations (i.e., groupings).  However, to the extent that correlations are more cost-effective than equipping every car with a black box, insurers could simply find other variables that are not gender but essentially give the same results. For example, if women tend to buy a product, insurers could use owning that product in lieu of gender in pricing premiums. That would probably set off another round of legal proceedings, but it would give insurers additional time under essentially their old rubric.  In short, I contend that business is inherently oriented to getting around things in its way profit-speaking. A regulation that a firm cannot use strategically (i.e., giving it a comparative advantage over competitors less well-equipped to comply) is apt to be viewed from a managerial standpoint as a challenge to get around with the least inconvenience or cost. To be sure, there was no evidence of such behavior as of the ECJ's March 1st ruling; I am merely pointing to how it might look.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704506004576173832873341162.html?KEYWORDS=EU+Closes+insurers%27

I once asked an official from a consulate office of the EU state of Britain about Turkey's possible accession into the EU as another state. He replied that it would be very disruptive—as much as if Mexico were to join the US as a state. The impact of another large state in union would be very significant, he observed. I was stunned that an official from a characteristically Euroskeptic state would make a reference that implies that the US and EU are on the same level. If his comparison is correct, then likening a Mexican state to a state in the US would evince a category mistake. That is to say, it would mean that a federal state could indeed apply to different scales of political organization, as Althusius had theorized in 1603.

Historically, Mexico was part of one colony of Spain called New Spain. For short-hand purposes, we could say that Mexico was a colony. So too was Virginia. While the latter joined a federative union with other colonies, and then sovereign (and then semi-sovereign) republics, Mexico remained as an independent state. At least by the beginning of the twenty-first century, a LAU (Latin American Union) had not formed. This does not mean, however, that Mexico is thereby a union in itself. Like many of the EU’s states, Mexico has provinces or regions, which in the American states would be intrastate regions or even counties. Some of the American states are sufficiently diverse that they would be good candidates for a federal system like that of Germany or Switzerland. Unfortunately, some of the intra-state officials in Europe and Latin America have been able to vaunt their status by calling themselves governors, as though their region were commensurate with France or Texas.

So in 2010 when all six Mexican border “governors” (six meaning that each is akin to a region say of Texas or Arizona and thus not equivalent with an American governor or a European head of state) wrote Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona to inform her that they were boycotting the 28th annual conference between “governors” of the border “states” because of Arizona’s new law to beef up enforcement of US immigration law, she could well have replied, “Well, I should really be meeting with your head of state anyway.” Just because the semi-sovereign American states do much in common through their federation does not mean that the states have somehow shrunk, such that France, a state in the EU, is now somehow equivalent to the US. That would be like saying that Virginia and the EU are equivalent. Europeans would be very offended. Yet Americans turn a blind eye to the convenient category mistakes that are made by others—and even ourselves—at our own expense.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/us/07governors.html?_r=1

The EU and US can be seen to differ markedly in the degree to which the interests of big business are etched in the respective societies and polities.  That is to say, the difference goes beyond the question of the relative influences of the lobbyists. I contend that the relative proclivity toward business in the American states tilts the political playing field in the direction of the financial interests. This difference reflects a more basic subterranean difference on how much wealth and its manifestation as business are valued.  That is to say, it is easier for financial sector lobbyists in the United States because the societal values lean in their favor. This can be seen from the respective financial reforms in the EU and US after the financial crisis of 2008. This case bears strongly on my thesis because in both economies the financial sector was viewed as culpable. So one would expect the ensuing laws to come down on the banks rather than be conducive to their interests, unless a societal value on the profit-motive were still in force.

On March 10, 2010, the EU Parliament adopted a Resolution (536 votes in favour to 80 against) calling for the financial sector to contribute fairly towards economic recovery since the costs of the crisis are being borne by taxpayers. On 25 March, Members of Parliament’s special “Financial, Economic and Social Crisis Committee” debated the rationale behind a possible financial transaction tax. Stephan Schulmeister of the Austrian Institute for Economic Research in Vienna said short-term financial transactions can make short-term prices of currencies and other financial products such as derivatives and shares vary wildly. Schulmeister claimed that a tax on financial transactions of just 0.05% would eliminate these short-term transactions, bring greater stability and bring €300 billion of additional revenues to the EU. While the tax would undoubtedly bring in revenue, it is not clear to me that short-term transactions would be eliminated, as they can be worthwhile even with such a tax. Moreover, the financial crisis of 2008 shows us that the volitility can come from the market mechanism itself (in so far as it magnifies irrational exuberance). At any rate, even as there has been division on the matter of such a tax in the parliament, that the proposal has been made distiguishes the legislative body of the EU from the Congress in the US, where such a proposal would undoubted by blocked. Indeed, the EU Parliament has gone ever further.

On July 7, 2010, the EU Parliament approved some of the strictest rules in the world on bankers’ bonuses.  In the legislation, caps are imposed on upfront cash bonuses and at least half of any bonus will have to be paid in contingent capital and shares. MEPs also toughened rules on the capital reserves that banks must hold to guard against any risks from their trading activities and from their exposure to highly complex securities. “Two years on from the global financial crisis, these tough new rules on bonuses will transform the bonus culture and end incentives for excessive risk-taking. A high-risk and short-term bonus culture wrought havoc with the global economy and taxpayers paid the price. Since banks have failed to reform we are now doing the job for them”, said British MEP Arlene McCarthy. Upfront cash bonuses are capped at 30% of the total bonus and to 20% for particularly large bonuses.  Between 40 and 60% of any bonus must be deferred for at least three years and can be recovered if investments do not perform as expected. Moreover at least 50% of the total bonus would be paid as “contingent capital” (funds to be called upon first in case of bank difficulties) and shares. Bonuses also have to be capped as a proportion of salary. Each bank must establish limits on bonuses related to salaries, on the basis of EU wide guidelines, to help bring down the overall, disproportionate, role played by bonuses in the financial sector. Finally, bonus-like pensions are also covered. Exceptional pension payments must be held back in instruments such as contingent capital that link their final value to the overall strength of the bank. This is to avoid situations, similar to those experienced in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008 in which some bankers retired with substantial pensions unaffected by the crisis their bank was facing. The rules apply to foreign banks operating in the EU and to subsidiaries of EU banks operating abroad. The law gives state regulators in the 27 EU states binding powers to take action against banks that fail to comply with the new rules (contrast this with the US Gov’t going after Arizona for trying to enforce US immigration law).

Clearly, the US financial reform does not go this far. Notably, it does not put much of a crimp in the American bankers’ life. This is no accident. The feeling among big bankers in the US is that they dodged a bullet concerning what could have been in the bill. That is to say, there was no “too big to fail” limit put on a bank’s capital or size generally speaking, or on the bankers’ compensation. The American media and President Obama have been strangely silent on why.  Perhaps it is as in the case of the health reform, where the President removed his objection to an insurance mandate and dropped his desire for a public option after the lobbyist for the American health insurance companies told him that her support was contingent on these changes. My point is simply this: Were not American society leaning in a pro-business direction (e.g., economic liberty being salient in how liberty itself is viewed), the President might not have felt the need to be bent in the lobbyist’s direction. That is to say, the lobbyist would not have had so much leverage. Wall Street no doubt had massive influence in the crafting of the financial reform as it was making its way through Congress (even though the banks were culpable in the financial crisis—which is itself telling). I submit that the reasons go beyond the sheer power of money. Fortunately, we can look across the pond for a better look at ourselves.

Sources: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/public/story_page/044-71441-088-03-14-907-20100329STO71433-2010-29-03-2010/default_en.htm
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/public/focus_page/008-76988-176-06-26-901-20100625FCS76850-25-06-2010-2010/default_p001c011_en.htm
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0„5769943,00.html

See related:http://euandus3.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/regulating-financial-and-commercial-derivatives/ (for a look at the US financial reform—esp. derivatives) and http://euandus3.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/immigration-and-federalism/ (contrast this federalism with that of the EU wherein the states are to enforce the bank bonus limits passed by the EU Parliament).

CNNMoney.com ran an article in July of 2010 on Illinois’ debt problem by likening Illinois to Greece. Rarely are states of the US compared to states of the EU. I suspect that comparisons between the American republics and European countries were more common during the first fifty years of the US, when—as in the EU in its first fifty years—most people living in the American states identified themselves principally with their country rather than as Americans. Aspiring politicans typically had their eyes on their respective state legislatures rather than on the Congress of the union because the states that formed the union held most of the domains of power and held the attachment of their respective citizens.  So it is in the early twenty-first century in the EU. Hence, I contend that the EU today is best compared with the US during its first fifty years rather than with its condition in the twenty-first century as a consolidated empire. 

Lest Europeans be too confident that the EU could never consolidate too, they might read Madison’s Notes on the Constitutional Convention, which report the certainty of the delegates that the peoples’ identification with their respective republics could be counted upon to restrain encroachments from the US level of governance. Of course, the state identification in the US has fellen away—though it is still more evident in Texas than say in Illinois. As strong as “nationalism” is now in Europe, Europeans would be wise not to rely on it in structuring their Union for future generations. It is indeed amazing how something so salient today can be so enervated tomorrow. We tend to project our day forward, when the sad fact is that three or four generations from now almost all of us will have been forgotten.

In terms of Illinois, in the middle of 2010 when Moody’s and Fitch downgraded its debt, the republic was on the way to assuming nearly $10 billion in sovereign debt for the year (yet, like Greece, without its own monetary policy). Unlike Greece, Illinois could not count on its Union for help—as the US itself was $13 tillion in debt and the stimulus money was ending at the end of 2010 (just after the midterm Congressional elections). The EU’s help itself reflects the federal balance in that union, as the state officials played an active role with EU officials in putting together the rescue package. The lack of such a balance in the US has contributed to Illinois’ financial condition.

After years of overspending, Illinois had as much as $6 billion in unpaid bills that left schools, social service agencies, and venders waiting months to be paid, according to the comptroller Daniel Hynes. “We’re leveraging our future and that’s not the correct approach, but it was what was chosen out of a lot of bad options,” Hynes told CNNMoney.com. Perhaps not many Illinoisians were aware of the structural imbalance, given their primary attention on matters of the US.  Because the debt problem has compromised Illinois (as the same problem has enervated Greece), the failure of Illinoisians to pay sufficient attention to their immediate republic can be linked to a further “downgrade” of it. Unlike Europeans, Americans cannot count on “nationalism” at the state level as a check in keeping their state officials “honest.” (Corruption in Illinois is indeed a problem)  Lest we take this difference to be enduring, we might remember that even seemingly-solid political attachments can shift radically even as the institutions remain.

In short, Illinois and Greece can be compared and contrasted on the particularities of their debt problems, and so can the EU and US as federal systems of public governance.  Avoiding category mistakes, like comparing Illinois to the EU, is a first step (which CNN has begun to avoid, albeit in small steps) to being able to compare and contrast in ways that do not result in faulty conclusions wherein apples are compared with oranges.  Yet from the vantage-point of the early twenty-first century, both in Europe and America, the category mistake still rules like a huge societal blind-spot. To compare the EU to the US (and any of their respective states with one of the other), it is most accurate to compare the EU now to the US during its first fifty years.  In a looser sense, a state of the EU is on the same level as one of the US, and the EU itself is on the same level as the US—the American colonies having been so in the Greek rather than the Roman sense (i.e., as replicating the home kingdom, rather than as a province thereof).

Source: http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/13/news/economy/illinois_debt/index.htm

On his first visit to the Turkish capital since becoming prime minister in May, 2010, David Cameron of the EU state of Britain likened the state of France’s opposition to Turkey’s bid join the EU to the French veto of Britain’s bid to become part of the EEC in the 1960s. I contend that his is a faulty comparison. Britian and Turkey do not occupy the same situs with respect to Europe. Notwithstanding the claim by some that not being on the contenent renders the British non-Europeans, Britain is in Europe. British culture is European. In contrast, only ten percent of Turkey is on the continent, and the Turkish culture is dissimilar to that in Europe.

Cameron also pointed to Turkey’s role in NATO, particularly with respect to the alliance's role in Afghanistan.  However, Turkey made it clear that it will not join EU sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Turkey does not have the same interests as do the states in Europe. For European leaders to essentially use Turkey as a state in order to have more influence in the Arab world is problematic. First, the Turks would not necessarily be welcomed by the Arabs as intermediaries, given the history and perceptions between the two groups. Secondly, the accession could force the EU to take an active role in resolving the Kurd issue in eastern Turkey (and northern Iraq). Rather than giving the Europeans more influence in the Middle East, having Turkey as a state could put the EU in a mire it can ill-afford, given its own challences within the current EU. In short, European strategic over-reaching could compromise what has been accomplished thus far in terms of European integration.


To add a very large Middle Eastern state to a union of European states would compromise, and perhaps buckle, the EU.  Already, the EU has struggled to make changes internally to accommodate its expansion to the east.  Turkey’s very different culture and interests could render the EU impotent, given the amount of power still being exercised by the governments of its states. Rather than use the EU to gain leverage in the Middle East, I recommend that Europeans solidify their “ever closer union” so it will be able to withstand the inevitable political storms in Europe.

As Britain is one of the more “euroskeptic” states in the EU, it is possible that Cameron made his statements in the hope that expanding the EU beyond Europe would effectively relegate the union into an international organization. As the EU stands now, it has an executive branch, a legislature (a Parliament and a Senate, or Council), and a supreme court (the ECJ).  From a euroskeptic standpoint, the EU’s government simply does not exist.  Admitting Turkey (and other non-European states) would make the EU more international and less of a federal union of governance. That is to say, the move would undo the EU.

To be sure, Britain is just one of 27 states in the EU. With regard to Turkey’s accession as the 28th state, 35 “chapter,” or subject areas, would need to be agreed on. As of July, 2010, only 13 had been opened and only one — research and development — had been provisionally concluded. Most of the rest were blocked — five by France — leaving the realistic prospect that only a further three could still be opened.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/world/europe/28iht-britain.html?_r=1&hp

On October 14, 2009, Charlie Rose interviewed John Micklethwait, the editor in chief of The Economist. The editor told Charlie that his publication supports Tony Blair as President of the European Council in the EU. The editor, by the way, is British. He said that “some ex-president” of a small EU State such as Luxembourg (i.e., a mere bureaucrat) could hardly stand toe to toe with Obama of the US and Hu of China. The editor obviously viewed the leaders of the large states of the EU as vastly superior to those of the small states. To be sure, it is difficult to view the UK and Luxembourg as being commensurate polities either in terms of land or population. Even so, as both of these polities are states in the EU, the prime minister of either ought to suitable to preside at the European Council.  Indeed, that intergovernmental body is akin to the U.S. Senate rather than to an entire government. Interestingly, as the editor was being interviewed, Joe Biden, who comes from one of the smallest States in the Union (i.e., Delaware), was President of the US Senate because he was elected as the Vice President of the US.

Although the President of the European Council is not President of the EU government as a whole and is thus not equivalent to the President of the United States, the editor did tacitly acknowledge by his comparison that the EU is commensurate with the US (and China). Both the US and EU are empire-scale unions of commensurate republics (large states in the US being roughly the same size as the large states in the EU); the British colonies in North America had been colonies in the Greek rather than the Roman sense--meaning one the same scale of the host kingdom rather than mere provinces.  Put another way, in being referred to as provinces, the colonies were so as provinces, or members, of the empire (Ireland being another member) rather than as provinces of a kingdom such as France.

That a large state in the EU used to be the host kingdom of an empire does not mean that that state is somehow equivalent to the Union of which it is a member (i.e., the EU) or to other Unions on the empire-scale such as the US.   To treat the UK as akin to the EU ignores the fact that Britain is a state in the EU.  By implication, to suppose Britain is superior to any other EU state is to commit a fallacious category mistake (i.e., conflating things of different levels or categories) in a way that unjustly distends or vaunts Britain.  In other words, being a host kingdom in an empire is commensurate to being a state in a union of republics that were (early modern) kingdoms; neither is equivalent to being an empire-scale polity consisting of such republics.

Imagine, if you will, New York claiming to be akin to the US or the EU simply due to a large population or land mass.   Such a claim can scarely be imagined, yet even small states in the EU are regularly treated as though they were commensurate with the US as a whole.  "In Romania we tend to eat X. What do you eat in the US?"  Well, it depends.  A Texan might talk of steak whereas a Maine man might refer to lobster.  The US is not like a European member state but with big territory; rather, the US is a union composed of states that are equivalent in scale to a European country. In spite of all this, the same person who views Britain as a third Union next to the EU and US would scoff at a similar statement made about New York.  It is precisely such illogical hypocrisy that is not seen on either side of the pond.

Strangely, the European editor of The Economist presumed in his interview with Charlie Rose there is some “Anglo-American” thing that likens his EU State to all of the American States (even those that had been French and Spanish colonies). He presumed that the commonalities in this axis are somehow greater than what Britain shares culturally with its sister states in the EU. C’est vraiment incroyable!  Even if parts of New England still have vestages of an English culture, this could hardly be generalized across the continent. New Mexico culture, for example, is overwhelmingly hispanic.  In actuality, the present-day US contains among its republics those that had been colonies of France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Spain, as well as Britain.  That is to say, the US is an empire-scale union of republics, and various cultural ingrediants went into those republics differentially.  An empire is, in other words, inherently heterogenious. 
I raise the case of the editor because it illustrates how people can get away with playing fast and loose with comparisons, especially where ideology and vested interests are involved. If I am correct in my analysis, cross-Atlantic comparisons are rife with category mistakes.  The practical significance of the problem include faulty conclusions (such as that there is a favorite food across the US) and missed opportunities to learn from each other (such as in contrasting the designs of the EU and US).

Sources:
http://www.charlierose.com/
http://www.newsweek.com/id/217090

There is something unAmerican about consolidated power.   The financial consolidation even after the financial bailouts of 2008, is now generally known to be dangerous economically.  What we don’t typically realize is that it complements political consolidation at the empire-level of Unions such as the US and EU.  I suspect that many Americans have a baleful sense from the various manifestations of consolidation.  We have a vague sense of a trend that seems to go against what our predecessors have stood for (i.e., against centralized power…going all the way back to George III).   Let’s just say that it is in the interest of big government and big business that we continue to forget this point and continue to chase after various demons.  That is to say, the anti-democratic power that has more influence in our government than even the skeptics realize does not fear the democratic element of one person, one vote, because we are scattered.  Should we ever unite and take back our government, it would be interesting to see what the corporate elite does.  Will they allow us to remain a democratic republic, or will they tell our government officials to give us the impression that we are in control?

A European leader, Angela Merkel, noted during a speech to the U.S. Congress in 2009 that, with the Lisbon amendment ratified, the EU “will become stronger and more capable of acting, and so a strong and reliable partner for the United States.”  The amendment deals with the EU’s governance, adjusting its political processes and institutions so as to streamline governance.  For example, there would be a President of the European Council and a Foreign Minister of the EU. Furthermore, not every State would have a commissioner in the EU.   The state governments’ chief executives would appoint the President of the European Council (whereas the President of the U.S. Senate is the elected Vice President of the union).

Because democratic principles are more difficult to apply at the empire-scale of the U.S. and E.U., it makes sense to have the representatives at the state level appoint the federal offices.  This is a basic principle of confederations, which have typically been at the empire-level. This may well seem strange from a contemporary American standpoint.  However, we could also be criticized for being vulnerable to the excesses possible in representative democracy spread too thin.  After all, the state offices are elected.  If we don’t trust them to make such appointments, we shouldn’t have elected them in the first place.  It seems to me that the Europeans have a more measured and prudent stance concerning the structure of their multi-level governance system in this regard.   Even so, the Europeans tend to have trouble coming to grips with the division of governmental sovereignty already extant in the EU federal system.  For example, already 67% of the EU competencies (enumerated powers) are by qualified majority voting, and therefore represent a significant shift in governmental sovereignty from the state level to the EU.  Apparently ignoring this state of affairs, Klaus of the Czech state claims that “the Czech Republic will cease to be a sovereign state.”  The already-existing extent of qualified majority rule in the EU means that Klaus’ state government is already no longer a sovereign state.   So problems on both sides of the Atlantic are evident.   Perhaps by studying each other’s systems, both can be strengthened.

Sources: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4853565,00.html ;  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/europe/04europe.html?_r=1&ref=world

It was a gray rainy Monday in Berlin, yet the sun was shining for those in Europe who are celebrating the fall of the iron curtain.   Twenty years ago from that day, it would have seemed surreal to the east Germans who could suddenly simply walk across a border without fear of being shot.  People simply walked through.  “I just wanted to set foot on your side,” one man said.  “Can I cross over there and visit my parents?” a woman asked.  The east German police could only say, “go ahead.”  There would be no criminal penalties.  Before long, people climbed the wall and started chiseling away.  “The wall has to go,” they cried, “sie ist zu ende.”
A state the size of Montana in the EU, the united Germany is today a positive force in Europe.  The fears that gave rise to the European Coal and Steel Cooperative are no longer extant.  To be sure, the existence of the EU renders Germany less a potential threat to its neighbors.  However, Germany is playing a far more positive role in European politics than simply being contained.  In fact, Germany is among the states that have been most supportive of the EU, both monetarily and in terms of supporting further political integration.   The lessons of war are not lost on the descendents of those Germans who lost two wars in the twentieth century. The lesson is: a federal union in Europe is the best chance to obviate future war.  The seventeenth century alone demonstrates just how much strife can occupy a century. 

The problem is perhaps how to give the European Union enough power to prevent war while not giving the union so much power that it can tyrannize over what is innately a heterogenious empire-scale continent.  The United States face the same problem, though that union is much closer to the consolidation end than to dissolution.   As much as Europeans may fear consolidation, justifiably looking at American history as evincing such a trajectory, I believe that the illusion that the EU is simply an alliance (in spite of having a supreme court, parliament, and executive branch) ought to be feared just as much.   The former east Germans ought to know the decadence in propaganda.   To be sure, the denial in the US of the empire-level consolidation is just as dangerous.  Both refusals to come to terms with how each of these unions has changed is like refusing to remove one’s blinders before driving.   In both federal unions, a realistic assessment is requisite to reforming the governance structures to achieve a balance of power between the unions and their state governments.   Common action, such as to forestall war and regulate interstate commerce, and cultural and ideological distinctiveness can each be accommodated; in fact, each can serve as a check on the other, such that neither one can snuff out the other.   Surely one of the lessons learned by the east Germans was that concentrations of power ought to be suspect, given human nature.

“In a sense, Europe seemed to be living down to expectations. Earlier, the foreign minister of Sweden, Carl Bildt, warned against a 'minimalist solution' that would reduce the European Union’s 'opportunity to have a clear voice in the world.'"  Olivier Ferrand, president of Terra Nova, a center-left research institute in France, said, “It is quite astounding. . . . It is jaw-dropping. It is the end of ambition for the E.U. — really disappointing.”

I think these are rather extreme positions on the selection of Herman Van Rompuy on November 19, 2009 as the first non-rotated president of the European Council.  Moreover, I don’t think the E.U. is going the way of the dinasaur just because Van Rompuy was not well known at the time of his selection.  He has written six books, is a writer of Japanese poems, has consensus-skills, and seems humble enough.  Would popular election have yielded a better candidate? As the election would have been E.U.-wide, it is doubtful that a high proportion of the voters would have been sufficiently familiar with him to make an informed decision. 

The New York Times continues, “The deal that produced the two choices emerged as a result of backroom negotiations among leaders jockeying for future and more important economic portfolios that could be more powerful in the enlarged European Union, which is still more of an economic union than a political one and looks to remain so.”  However, the E.U. includes a popularly-elected Parliament. Is a parliament not political? Is a parliament not a government body?  Perhaps, moreover, we should simply say that transfers of sovereignty are now economic in nature.

One might ask: who would have a vested interest in perpetrating such a subterfuge wherein governmental institutions, whether intergovernmental (e.g., the European Council) or national (e.g., the E.U. Parliament) are to be portrayed as solely economic in nature? According to The New York Times,  “The leaders of Europe’s most powerful countries, France and Germany, did not want to be overshadowed. Nor apparently did their foreign ministers.”   After the European Council elected Van Rompuy, Gordon Brown, the then-current British Prime Minister who had been pushing for Tony Blair (his precursor), told reporters that the posts are only ceremonial anyway since the state governments are still in control.  However, is Van Rompuy's role in presiding over the European Council merely for show? Is there not power in chairing a political institution? Furthermore, are the heads of the state governments in charge of the E.U. Commission, the E.U. Parliament, and the European Court of Justice? Even within the European Council where the governors of the states sit, qualified majority voting on most issues means that any given state government is not in control. We can conclude that E.U. level officials are not mere gloss on a window, and that the member states have indeed transferred some of their governmental sovereignty to the E.U. Government. Lest is be thought otherwise--that the E.U. does not have a government, there is a saying in English: If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and swims like a duck, odds are it is a duck.  It might be useful to ask why it is in the interest of some that the obvious conclusion be withheld.

My only caveat concerning the selection of Van Rompuy is that the consensus maker was not the sort to make transparent the "duck" subterfuge and denial, which had gone unchecked at the expense of greater European integration. In other words, the E.U. needs its own leaders who can garnish attention for the E.U. itself (i.e., apart from its state governments) because if integration falters, the danger will be dissolution unless or until more governmental sovereignty is transferred to the E.U. As for Van Rompuy's low name recognition outside Belgium at the time of his selection, let’s not forget that few, if any, presidents of the U.S. Senate (the Vice President of the U.S.) have been known at the beginning of their respective terms. Of course, outside of breaking tie votes, the president of the U.S. Senate (whose members are the member states of the union) is more ceremonial than is the president of the European Council.  In fact, senators regularly stand in for the presiding officer when the U.S. Senate is in session, whereas Van Rompuy himself presides over sessions of the European Council.  Also, the European Council is possibly more powerful among E.U. governmental institutions than the U.S. Senate is in the U.S. This is probably so because the state governments in the E.U. have more power at the E.U. level than the American state governments do in the U.S. This could explain why Van Rompuy's position, the President of the European Council, is powerful (because the Council he chairs is powerful) even if Van Rompuy had been an unknown outside of Belgium and was not an attention-getter in the media (e.g., unlike Tony Blair).

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/world/europe/20union.html?_r=1&ref=world

Should the EU allow Turkey to join as a new state?  That Turkey is overwhelmingly not in Europe and does not have a European culture are cited by those arguing against it.   Of course, not every state of the European Union has to be in Europe.  The USA has Hawaii even though the islands are far from America.  However, Hawaii has a westernized culture and is a small state in the American Union, whereas Turkey is Islamic and Middle Eastern and is huge in comparison with most EU states.   100 million people  is more than Deutschland (80 million)…so turkey would be the largest state peoplewise.  I don’t think it would be very wise to have a non-European state/culture being your largest state. it would be a sort of hypertrophy.  (good word to look up)  It is the EUROPEAN Union, afterall.  To compromise the European Union as a means to gaining leverage in the middle east is in my view rather short-sighted and not really in the Europeans’ interest.
As I see it, the primary reason for both the US and EU is to forestall war between the states within and to provide a defense against foreign threats.  I know the economic threats (and power) is though to be primary in the case of the EU, but I would go back to the speeches in the early 1950s by Jean Monnet and even Churchill on the primary need to avoid another world war sourced in Europe.  The early iron and coal cooperative between six states was geared to preventing Germany from re-militarizing primarily…economics being secondary.  The EEC was built onto this High Authority and the economic has been thought to be the dominant rationale.  Not to discount the benefits of a common market; the US has def benefited from one.  But I would argue that the EU’s mission is not primarily economic, but rather to prevent war within Europe.  This is why I think still more power should go to the EU, but not so much that it consolidates like another union that  I won’t mention.