Tuesday 8 November 2011

Why federalism?


I affect not reserves which I do not feel. I will not amuse you with an appearance of deliberation when I have decided. I frankly acknowledge to you my convictions and I will freely lay before you the reasons on which they are founded.
The Federalist Papers, No. 1


Why should there be supranational integration at all? Unfortunately, the partisans of the "European idea" often answer this question with rather unconvincing arguments. They like to tell us that the European Union, the Common Market, the Monetary Union have economic advantages – or they refer with pathos to the peace in Europe, safeguarded by the EU. Both arguments are true, no doubt, but they fall short of the real importance of the European integration. Sure, every European country, especially Germany, would be poorer without the EU. But in its competences and its functioning, the EU has long grown beyond the old Economic Community, and it doesn't make much sense to evaluate all of its actions only on the basis of its economic benefits. And sure, the European integration was essential for the Franco-German rapprochement during the 1950s and it still makes impossible any intra-European war. But after all we know from conflict research, if it were only about avoiding wars, it would suffice that all European countries are internally democratic. In any case, this argument cannot justify today's EU, and even less a further supranationalisation: where should the apparently never-ending integration process lead to, and why should the European citizens support it, if all the goals  we wanted to achieve with it have long been accomplished?

But the decisive reason for supranational integration is a different one: it is the striking democratic deficit of any system of independent nation states. Because every nation state is democratic only internally: it concedes all of its citizens the same participation rights and therefore has the legitimation to solve social problems which affect the whole if these citizens. However, social relations don't stop at national borders: citizens of different countries do business together, compete with each other, pollute each other's air and water, marry each other, and want to learn from each other at schools and universities. Therefore, there is a need for political regulation which goes beyond countries and for which the sovereign nation states of the past have developed diplomacy and international law. These tools were sufficient as long as the societies of different countries were still rather separated from each other: important political questions were decided democratically in a national framework – and a functional elite in the foreign ministries of the world was entrusted with the few problems which went beyond that and needed an international regulation.

A dilemma and a way out

But the closer the connections between the societies became, the more obvious were the problems of such a diplomatic decision-making between governments which are responsable to their national population only. On the one hand, it is rather unefficient, as the single governments don't have in mind the best possible solution for all citizens, but only for those of their own country, and thus are often disposed to take a free ride and increase their own benefits at the expense of the collectivity. On the other hand, diplomatic decision-making restrains the participation of citizens, as their voting right only gives them influence over their respective own government – not over all the others who also take part in the decisions. These two disadvantages are complementary; minimizing one of them, you increase the other: If you emphasize the right of democratic self-determination by accepting only informal co-operation on the international level and maintaining a veto right for national parliaments for any decision, there will be a growing danger that transnational problems are not solved at all. If, by contrast, you increase diplomatic efficiency by introducing majority voting in international organisations or delegating decisions to special boards and committees, you reduce even more the influence of any single citizen.

The only way to escape this dilemma is to introduce parliamentary decision-making procedures beyond the national level. Only a supranational democracy enables political decisions by majority voting and still maintains the power of the citizens, as decision makers will be elected by them. What concerns the citizens of a single country, should be decided by the inhabitants of this country. But what concerns the citizens of all countries, must be decided by the inhabitants of all countries – or by a Parliament responsible to them. And this is the merit of the European integration and the reason why it has to continue in further treaty reforms, not in any direction, but in the direction of a complete supranational federation, in which a European government will be responsible to the European Parliament and the European Parliament to the European citizens. Because only a federal Europe can be a democratic Europe.

And, by the way, only a federal world can be a democratic world.

La via da percorrere non è facile, né sicura. Ma deve essere percorsa, e lo sarà!
Altiero Spinelli/Ernesto Rossi, Manifesto di Ventotene

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