Federal Leap or Political Unions? - Institut Jacques Delors

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Federal Leap or Political Unions?

The on-going evolution of the euro zone crisis has elicited healthy calls for a boost to European integration which often crystallise around the concept of a “federal leap”. Yves Bertoncini tries to clarify the terms of this debate, underlining the EU is already a “Federation of Nation States” and inviting to address three key issues: the share out of competences, the European government and democracy within the EU.

| 22/06/2012

| Yves Bertoncini |

| Law and institutions

The on-going evolution of the eurozone crisis has elicited healthy calls for a boost to European integration which often crystallise around the concept of a “federal leap”. Yves Bertoncini tries to clarify the terms of this debate, in a Notre Europe’s viewpoint identifying four main issues:

1 – A “European Federation of Nation States” based on a specific social and political contract

2 – Adjusting the share out of competences between the EU and its member states

3 – The issue of European government and of recourse to differentiation

4 – The need to rise to the democratic challenges at the national and Community levels

Competences, government, democracy: those are the three main issues in a European “roadmap” which must not be purely economic and social, but must also be political and institutional – and they are also the ingredients of the political jolts, as daring as it is reasonable, which the EU so sorely needs.