A federal Europe, also referred to as the United States of Europe (USE) or a European federation, is a hypothetical scenario of European integration leading to the formation of a sovereign superstate (similar to the United States of America), organised as a federation of the member countries of the European Union (EU), as contemplated by political scientists, politicians, geographers, historians, futurologists and fiction writers. At present, while the EU is not officially a federation or even a confederation, most contemporary scholars of federalism view the EU as a federal system, a supranational union, which has a flexible (see right to secession, Article 50 and Brexit) membership and competence delegation.
History
Various versions of the concept have developed over the centuries, many of which are mutually incompatible (inclusion or exclusion of the United Kingdom, secular or religious union, etc.). Such proposals include those from Bohemian King George of Poděbrady in 1464;Colette Beaune: Chrétienté et Europe: le projet de Georges de Podiebrad au xve siècle, in: Chrétiens et sociétés, vol. 1 | 1994, Duc de Sully of France in the seventeenth century;Bogumil Terminski, "The Evolution of The Concept of Perpetual Peace in The History of Political-Legal Thought," Perspectivas Internacionales, 2010, p286 and the plan of William Penn, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, for the establishment of a "European Dyet, Parliament or Estates".William Penn, the Englishman who invented the European Parliament by Daniele Archibugi in openDemocracy. Access 9 February 2019 The Welsh intellectual Richard Price wrote about an idea for a “united states" of Europe that would maintain liberty and ensure peace on the continent in his pamphlet Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, about how to resolve the issue with the American colonies in 1776. George Washington also allegedly voiced support for a "United States of Europe", although the authenticity of this statement has been questioned.Disputed "Europe" on Wikiquote
19th century Felix Markham notes how during a conversation on St. Helena, Napoleon Bonaparte remarked: "Europe thus divided into nationalities freely formed and free internally, peace between States would have become easier: the United States of Europe would become a possibility".Felix Markham, Napoleon (New York: Penguin Books USA Inc., 1966), 257 as quoted in Matthew Zarzeczny, Napoleon's European Union: The Grand Empire of the United States of Europe (Kent State University Master's thesis), 2. "United States of Europe" was also the name of the concept presented by Wojciech Jastrzębowski in About eternal peace between the nations, published 31 May 1831. The project consisted of 77 articles. The envisioned United States of Europe was to be an international organisation rather than a superstate. Giuseppe Mazzini, an early advocate of a "United States of Europe" regarded European unification as a logical continuation of the unification of Italy. Mazzini created the Young Europe movement.
The term "United States of Europe" () was used by Victor Hugo, including during a speech at the International Peace Congress held in Paris in 1849. Hugo favoured the creation of "a supreme, sovereign senate, which will be to Europe what parliament is to England" and said: "A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood ... A day will come when we shall see ... the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas". During his exile from France, Hugo planted a tree in the grounds of his residence on the Island of Guernsey and was noted in saying that when this tree matured the United States of Europe would have come into being. This tree to this day is still growing in the gardens of Maison de Hauteville, St. Peter Port, Guernsey.
In 1867, Giuseppe Garibaldi and John Stuart Mill joined Victor Hugo at the first congress of the League of Peace and Freedom in Geneva. Here the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin stated: "That in order to achieve the triumph of liberty, justice and peace in the international relations of Europe, and to render civil war impossible among the various peoples who make up the European family, only a single course lies open: to constitute the United States of Europe".
Early 20th century
Before the communist revolution in Russia, Leon Trotsky foresaw a "Federated Republic of Europe — the United States of Europe", created by the proletariat.John Reed, "Ten Days That Shook The World", Boni & Liveright, New York, (March 1919) ch. 3. Following the First World War, some thinkers and visionaries again began to float the idea of a politically unified Europe. A Pan-European movement gained some momentum from the 1920s with the creation of the Paneuropean Union, based on Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi's 1923 manifesto Paneuropa, which presented the idea of a unified European State. This movement, led by Coudenhove-Kalergi and subsequently by Otto von Habsburg, is the oldest European unification movement.Otto von Habsburg: Die Paneuropäische Idee. Eine Vision wird Wirklichkeit. Amalthea Verlag, Wien-München 1999, Vanessa Conze: Das Europa der Deutschen; Ideen von Europa in Deutschland zwischen Reichstradition und Westorientierung (1920–1970); Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag; 2005; .Ben Rosamond, Theories of European Integration, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000, pp. 21–22. In 1923, the Austrian Count Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi founded the Pan-Europa Movement and hosted the First Paneuropean Congress, held in Vienna in 1926. The aim was for a Europe based on the principles of liberalism, Christianity and social responsibility.
His ideas influenced Aristide Briand, French Prime Minister, who gave on 8 September 1929 a speech before the Assembly of the League of Nations in which he proposed the idea of a federation of European nations based on solidarity and in the pursuit of economic prosperity and political and social co-operation. At the League's request, Briand presented in 1930 his "Memorandum on the Organization of a Regime of European Federal Union" for the Government of France.D. Weigall and P. Stirk, editors, The Origins and Development of the European Community, Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1992, pp. 11–15. In the early 1930s, French politician Édouard Herriot and British civil servant Arthur Salter both penned books titled The United States of Europe.
After the First World War, Winston Churchill had seen continental Europe as a source of threats and sought to avoid the United Kingdom's involvement in European conflicts. On 15 February 1930, Churchill commented in the American journal The Saturday Evening Post that a "European Union" was possible between continental states, but without the United Kingdom's involvement: During the 1930s, Churchill was influenced by and became an advocate of the ideas of Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi and his Paneuropean Union, though Churchill did not then advocate the United Kingdom's membership of such a union. (Churchill revisited the idea in 1946 and advocated British participation.)
During the World War II victories of Nazi Germany in 1940, Wilhelm II stated that "the hand of God is creating a new world & working miracles. ... We are becoming the United States of Europe under German leadership, a united European Continent".Jonathan Petropoulos, Royals and the Reich, Oxford University Press (2006) p. 170
In 1941, the Italian anti-fascists Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi wrote the Ventotene Manifesto, encouraging a federation of European states.Bertrand Vayssière, "Le Manifeste de Ventotene (1941): Acte de Naissance du Federalisme Europeen," Guerres Mondiales et Conflits Contemporains (Jan 2005), Vol. 55 Issue 217 It argued that, if the fight against the fascist powers were successful, it would be in vain if it merely led to the re-establishment of the old European system of sovereign nation-states in shifting alliances. This would inevitably lead to war again. The document called for the establishment of a European federation by the democratic powers after the war. It was widely circulated through the Italian Resistance, and then in other anti-fascist resistance movements. Resistance leaders from several countries met clandestinely in Geneva in 1944, a meeting attended by Spinelli. Back in Italy, Spinelli, along with others, founded the European Federalist Movement (MFE), which later spread to other European countries as the Union of European Federalists (UEF).
The European Confederation () was a proposed political institution of European unity, which was to be part of a wider restructuring (). Proposed by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in March 1943, the concept was rejected by Adolf Hitler. Also in 1943 the Italian Fascists proposed the creation of a 'European Community' free of British 'intrigues' at their Congress of Verona in their newly declared Salo Republic (Mussolini having been rescued from captivity).
Post-World War II As early as 21 October 1942, in a minute to his Foreign Secretary, Winston Churchill had written, "I look forward to a United States of Europe in which the barriers between the nations will be greatly minimised and unrestricted travel will be possible". (1988 edition reprint)
Churchill called for a "United States of Europe" in a speech delivered on 19 September 1946 at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. In this speech given after the end of the Second World War, Churchill concluded:
While Churchill advocated a united Europe, he initially saw Britain and its Commonwealth, along with the United States of America, and Soviet Russia as "the friends and sponsors of the new Europe", separate to a United States of Europe led by France and Germany. But as the first steps to European unity were taken, Churchill changed his position and advocated the creation of a United Europe that would include Britain. He lent his considerable personal prestige to the Congress of Europe in 1948 in The Hague, where he called for the 16 democratic European countries, "including Great Britain, linked with her Empire and Commonwealth", to start building Europe, aiming "at the union of Europe as a whole"
Churchill's was a more cautious approach to European integration, avoiding the word "federal". It was sometimes described as "Unionist". A United Europe Movement advocated inter-governmental arrangements while the Federalists focused on the importance of establishing a European parliamentary assembly. Following the 1948 Congress of Europe in The Hague, the Council of Europe was established, with an intergovernmental Committee of Ministers, a consultative parliamentary assembly composed of delegates from national parliaments, and a European Court of Human Rights. It was the first pan-European organisation, predating the European Union.
In the 1947 essay "Toward European Unity", English writer George Orwell called for the establishment of a Federal Europe under a system of democratic socialism, which he believed could act as a geopolitical counterweight to both the capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union.