There was a rather strange moment on Thursday’s BBC Question Time. There was a discussion about President Obama’s intervention in the EU referendum debate.
Liam Fox was waxing lyrically about how the USA has great democracy, and all we want is the same democracy ourselves without our country being, he posited, controlled by “Brussels”.
What this argument seemed to miss is the title of the country: “The United States of America”.
That great country is the most outstanding example of a federation known to man! Fifty states have pooled sovereignity over relevant matters while retaining strong powers over appropriate areas in their states.
If there is any strong argument, through example, for the EU, it is the USA.
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist. He is currently taking a break from his role as one of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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40 Comments
There’s a huge difference – the Americans have a common language, which means there can be a true, bottom-up ‘demos’ in their democracy. (BTW, I’m voting to remain but I’m against ‘ever closer union’.)
Not sure that the United States of America is a good example. If the “in” camp suggested we become part of a United States of Europe the “leave” camp would win the referendum by a country mile. I think even in the “in” camp many would prefer it if the EU went back to being a Common Market and not an ever closer political union.
@Paul Walter,
You’re right. If the EU was a genuine United States of Europe with a common currency, a common taxation system, and there was a genuine democracy to elect a Parliament and a President with powers and whose name everyone knew, unlike the EU president who is a nonentity by comparison, then it would probably work well and be successful.
The richer countries would have to recycle their surpluses to the less affluent countries just as the richer states in the USA recycle their surpluses to Mississippi and Louisiana. Needless to say, the chances of this coming about are just about zero! I may be wrong but I can’t see German voters going along with that idea.
Another possible successful model for the EU would be for it to be a collection of freely trading nations each with its own own floating currency, and own rules on taxation, and fiscal and monetary policies. We’ve had that, at least sort of, in the early days of the EEC/EC and it worked relatively well.
What we have now is neither one thing nor the other. It’s never going to work, unfortunately.
Hi Peter, I agree with you. The European Central Bank ought to have the power to recycle euros, through some sort of governmental contribution system , from surplus countries to deficit countries in order to make the eurozone work in practice as the dollar works in the USA. I am under the impression that once somewhere becomes a state of the USA it is not allowed ever to leave the Union so its a bit difficult to see the EU becoming totally like the USA.
The main difference between the United States of America and a putative United States of Europe is indeed the common language. Although English is often the fall back lingua franca in much of Europe, (although, in the East, I reckon that German, or even Russian, would run it a close second) it is, in theory, no more important than all the others. So, I can’t see a United States of Europe succeeding if you base it on language alone. Besides, as a former MFLs teacher, I quite like the idea of learning other languages.
As far as the future is concerned (hopefully with the UK still on board) the economic model is the one to concentrate on. So….let’s make sure we and our partners get on with selling each other the products of our labour. Only, from now on, let’s make sure that any more laws we pass are predominantly for the benefit of Europe’s citizens and not exclusively of big business and multinationals.
They didn’t pool voluntarily. Eleven states once asked to leave and 600,000 deaths later they found out they couldn’t.
Andrew Suz
German almost became the common language of the United States some years after its foundation. Today many speak Spanish there and a few the native American languages.
I believe the word ‘dollar’ is derived from the Mid European currency ‘Thaler’ used in many German speaking areas. Trust the Germans to be behind the money! Mind you, if the USA had stayed out of both world wars, we might all be speaking German now.
As people have said: language is probably the main difference between the United States and the European Union. We need to spread the English language throughout Europe more and across the world more. This can be done via positive means such as funding English language courses and we should perhaps work with the British Council to achieve this. We could also do with working with America and the Commonwealth too.
British people learning other languages is also important – people don’t have to become fluent – any new words or phrases are progress and it will help Europe and the world too.
If the UK and France had even half as much in common as Florida does with New York then sure, great, all in favour. “Pooled” sovereignty means the states lose their sovereignty utterly of course. But that’s fine if you give it to a polity you trust to share your values.
I notice that even in the USA there are strong voices who don’t want to be ruled by the people one state over who share a religion, a language, news networks, philosophical assumptions, and heritage….
For those of you using the argument that the USA works because of a common language (English). I would like to point out that the USA has no official recognised language.
The USA is diverse. political campaigns are in Spanish, French, Creole, …
Tax policy varies widely. Propositions (referendums) on tax in California have made the state ungovernable. Anomalies abound: Texas joined by treaty and has the right to leave, enhancing its power and likelihood of getting the Presidency, Vermont joined by treaty but does not have the right to leave. Intellectual freedom was better in California than in New York, hence Silicon Valley.
The EU won’t share with other countries like the USA would. If it did then being in might be a good idea. After the European Union hung Greece and others out to dry leaving policies giving them 25% unemployment it became clear to me that this Union not something I want any part of. If the going gets tough Europe won’t be there for us. It’s the remain side that seem to dreaming.
No the main difference between the united states and the EU is that it is a single country with a single leader and a single government, rather than a collection of countries. The USA isn’t even united with other North American countries so is absolutely nothing like the EU. Arguably, closer to the EU than the USA is the old soviet block!
Fred-why didn’t the other eurozone countries stand up against Germany to support Greece ? The UK could not do anything as we are not in the eurozone. If we leave the EU Germany will be
completely the dominant power in Europe whether she likes it or not !
Glenn,
We might think of the USA as one country; but there are massive strains between the states and the elite in Washington, DC. That’s the major reason for the emergence of the Tea Party and presidential hopefuls such as Trump and Cruz.
Eddie Sammon
Believe me, for many people around the world English is already THE language. That’s one of the reasons why we Brits are less inclined to learn another language. How many British politicians either past or present are/were confident in another language? In the past Lord Healey (German) comes to mind. And then I believe that Lord Ashdown does a passable Mandarin, although he us, of course, still around. Of the current crop, only Nick Clegg would appear to qualify; but he’s hardly flavour of the month now, is he? Why bother? Well, didn’t a former German Ambassador here once say that, if we wanted to buy from his country you could negotiate the deal in English; but if you wanted to sell them things, you had better speak to them in German?
@Christoper
Why other countries didn’t take greece’s side? Probably because like Germany they couldn’t care less about Greece and the Greek people, and I see no reason to believe the UK would have been any different had it had a role to play. The U.K. is as self interested as the rest of those countries, no better and no worse.
This is therefore a reason as to why those countries shouldn’t be in a union with each other, not a reason why they should.
@Andrew Suz
If you vote to remain then ever closer union is what you’ll get. If we vote remain that is it, we will be signed up to this thing lock stock and barrel with no way out.
Then the pro EU side will start lobbying for Turkey’s entry. The EU will expand and it’s powers over member states will grow, that is the reality. A remain vote is an endorsement of the EU project.
Who knows. If turkey is in the EU then next time a comedian insults their president maybe rather than get Germany to prosecute them they will simply issue a European Arrest Warrent.
Germany are already closer to Turkey than they are to the USA. Germany refused requests to prosecute comedians for insulting George W. Bush but they wouldn’t refuse to do it for Turkey.
Are you sure this is the future you want?
There are clearly limits to state sovereignty in the United States. The Supreme Court’s decision to legalise same-sex marriages is just one example. Individual states were bypassed by the Supreme Court. That is how the system works, but before the court and its decision, states were left to decide. Do states ultimately decide? Or is it Washington DC? It’s mostly the federal government. So, true federalism in America does not exist or is not fully realised.
Another example would be education. Republicans want to abolish common core (or federally run education) and put it back to the states. In this scenario, again it is Washington that is telling states what to do as opposed to the states making decisions themselves.
The USA unlike the EU is an accountable institution. That’s key to everything and I see no evidence to suggest that the EU Commission wishes to become more transparent or accountable to the people it is supposed to serve.
John Marriot.
We think of the USA as a country because it is a country not a set of countries. There are huge strains between the regions of England and probably strains within most countries for that matter.
From what I can tell The Tea Party is about the internal struggles of the Republican Party, politicised religion, race and endless arguments about the constitution than anything applicable to either Britain or the EU. It’s a foreign country with different mores and ideas. It’s like trying to link the politics of India or any other country to the UK. Personally, I think everyone has grown up with so much American Pop Culture we tend to think the USA is more like us than it actually is.
Very interesting notion from Paul , very intelligent response thread above.
I believe the United States , due to its , melting pot of ethnicity ,the extent of its democracy , its background and history , is somewhere in between the usual sort of norm for a single country ,and a federation of joined states.
Certainly it is and has long been , one nation , indivisible , as the constitution says , making the war to defend it , that became the American Civil War , inevitable, due to the voluntary and thoroughly unconstitutional ceding from the Union , by the South.
Yet it is very different, as shown in that war and since , with a genuine regional and State identity or autonomy sensed and practised.
The European could , in the absence of an official common language , in the dislike of developing a common structure , at lest in our far greater differences than within the United States , develop more understanding and true friendship.
It is in our diversity we can find strength , in our differences feel stronger , but only if we had the security of the knowledge that our individual nations are still autonomous and respected as such .
What we need is a European Union with a knowledge of each others countries .And cultures.
A European Union that could learn from the humour and humanity of the Eurovision song contest !
@Rightsaidfredfan
“Then the pro EU side will start lobbying for Turkey’s entry. The EU will expand and it’s powers over member states will grow, that is the reality. A remain vote is an endorsement of the EU project.”
A remain vote would enable the UK to veto the entry of Turkey to the EU if the country felt that was appropriate.
@noncomformist
It would leave the UK government with a veto, not the UKs people. Next time there is a government like the new labour one Turkey would have no problem getting the OK from the UK. It doesn’t matter what the people want, even in Ireland where the people do get a vote they get told to vote again if they get the wrong answer. The pro EU side are generally in favor of turkey joining, so are the British political establishment which the lib dems are a part of.
Rightsaidfredfan,
For Turkey to gain entry ALL member states need to agree.
Ever closer union for some; but not for all. Ever closer union requires treaty change, which would trigger referenda, I believe.
It’s pretty obvious on which side of the argument you stand. And I thought that ‘Project Fear’ was the preserve of the Remain campaign. I was obviously wrong.
At least we now know the value of our so called special relationship with the USA.
If UK voters have the audacity to vote leave, our ‘friends’ in the USA will push us to the back of the queue in terms of negotiating a trade agreement,you really couldn’t make it up.
I also oppose the federalist model. It involves large transfers of money from rich states to poor states; a process which becomes entrenched. Convergence will not occur. Secondly, there are large cultural differences between states. The nation state is not an artificial construct. They need to find a different path, otherwise they endanger the project itself. Belgium is not a good model for the EU.
John,
Welcome to the REAL world!
John, it is stated that 7.5 million Germans emigrated to the northern parts of the USA between 1820 and 1870 which doubled the population of the country. This especially happened after the crushed1848 liberal uprisings against monarchial rule in the German states leaving Germany devoid of liberal thought and enterprise. The idea that USA has a special relationship with Britain is a bit wishful thinking on our part.
Perhaps we should all be reading The Leopard ; “Unless we ourselves take a hand now, they’ll foist a republic on us. If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”
Rightsaidfredfan 23rd Apr ’16 – 3:31pm Eurozone, not EU.
John Marriott 23rd Apr ’16 – 11:28pm
“For Turkey to gain entry ALL member states need to agree”
and the European Parliament. The country most likely to cast a veto is Cyprus, although negotiations with the north are happening.
France would have a referendum, by law.
Several EU member states were part of, or threatened by, the former Ottoman Empire.
There is a powerful difference between the United States of today and the United States of 1776. The one in 1776 was a confederation, just like the European Union, and it failed. Just like the confederation that is the European Union of 2016 is failing.
The United States of 1776 failed for the same reason that the European Union of 2016 is failing, and for the same reason every confederation eventually fails. Confederations are defined as unions where the power lies at the level of the member state. In good times, confederations can be expansive and get things done. In bad times, however, the member state will primarily look out for itself and block initiatives that may aid the whole but hurt the member state.
The United States of 1776 had to, over a period of a hundred years, change from a confederation to a federation. It took a bloody war to finalise the transformation. A federation is the inverse of a confederation. The top level can impose change on the member state against its will for the benefit of the whole union. That was what was needed for the United States to ultimately survive, and that is what is needed for the European Union to ultimately survive.
Unfortunately, the debate in this country will never contemplate that. Those who profess to support the union will never utter that solution to the underlying problem. We’ll all talk around it, and we’ll all pretend that it’s about the influence of the member state. Because it seems unlikely that there would ever be popular support for doing what needs to be done: changing the European Union from a confederation to a full federation.
If that’s not possible, perhaps it’s for the best that it dies now before we get to the point the Americans were at in the 1860s. And I say that as a reluctant supporter of the European Union.
@ Colin
Rather melodramatic. Europe is not America and we do not live in the 18th century. If you want to make suggestions about the possible development of the EU, then it would be better to study european history or follow contemporary, european political debate.
@Nom de Plume
“Rather melodramatic. Europe is not America and we do not live in the 18th century.”
This was said in a post where the very article the comment field is attached to makes the comparison between US at the founding and the European Union…
The special relationship does exist and like any good relationship worth staying with , it adapts , changes, deteriorates, improves, lasts.
President Obama has a varied way of expressing things , far more than most presidents. He is a soaring orator at the podium.He is the measured interviewee in the studio.He is the casual responder off the cuff.We cannot know his remarks were planned in the detail of what he said or the way he said it in particular .His saying ,we as a nation , negotiating a trade deal with the USA, would go to the back of the queue, was not , in my view a patronising command in the vain of a schoolteacher telling off the pushy kid , but a statement of fact , knowing that we , because of first come , first served , could not , should not , jump the queue, but realise that these things take time The TTIP has taken over two years , the deal for Canada with Europe took over ten !
Obama can be flippant in his off the cuff way , but he is our friend .Trump,Cruz,? Help!
@ Colin
I have now read the wiki article about US history and, interesting as it may be, I now see even less of a likeness of the US at its founding and the EU. The Boston Tea Party was in 1773. Since July 4, 1776, the US was conceived as a single nation with a more powerful constitution in 1787. The civil war was about slavery. The social conditions were very difference. You need to expand your argument, not just make assertions.
The real point is not to compare the USA with the EU – or any practicable extrapolation of the EU – but to recognise the sheer size and power of the USA when compared with the UK or indeed any one of the 28 countries making up the EU. I am a proud Briton and in many ways marvel at the degree to which the achievements of the UK exceed its size but the brexiteers are getting more and more carried away with the idea that we are a megapower. The USA does not need to form some sort of continental union – it virtually is a continent in itself. I think Obama was clearly too polite to dismiss the attempts to claim equivalence between the USA and the UK. Indeed the restraint and respect he showed during his impressive visit here were exceeded only by the simple and devastating logic of his message.
@ Denis
I am pro-EU and anti-federalist. At least for the UK. The eurozone may have to become federal.
I don’t want to keep coming back to this but it would nice if other people were not making sweeping statements about why people might be voting out. Personally, I’m not interested in Britain being a mega power. In fact one of the main reasons I’m voting out is so Britain can withdraw a little from the world stage and maybe concentrate on things at home.
@ John Marriott
“Well, didn’t a former German Ambassador here once say that, if we wanted to buy from his country you could negotiate the deal in English; but if you wanted to sell them things, you had better speak to them in German?”
This is another argument which has the implicit assumption that exports are better for the exporting country than the importing country. But why do we think this?
If country A is mainly produces food and country B mainly produces manufactured products, it makes sense for them to swap food for manufactured goods. Trade benefits the residents of both countries. If country B didn’t get the food from A there would be no commercial reason for them to supply their manufactures. And vice versa.
So the whole point of exporting is to be able to afford imports. There’s no point in exporting just for the sake of it and acquiring IOUs of the someone else which can never be spent. Because if they were spent then the country might become a net importer and that would never do for Germany, would it?
@ Christopher Haigh – “The idea that USA has a special relationship with Britain is a bit wishful thinking on our part.”
The special relationship is and remains what it always has been: an unparalleled sharing of intelligence gathering and collaborative defence integration, which is not matched anywhere else on the planet for its breadth or scale.
@ Paul Walter – “That great country is the most outstanding example of a federation known to man!”
You getting hung up on the word federation, and rather ignoring the absolute lack of political integration of NAFTA. Polling sovereignty with south america? No. Inviting Canadian Judges to pronounce upon the constitutional legality of the death penalty? No.