Talk:Federalisation of the European Union

message: I'm really unsure about this section, and I’m glad it has already been flagged.  There appears to be no link to a source and hence it is just wild speculation of what may happen. I don’t think this should belong in an encyclopaedia unless these ideas can be attributed an a relevant person or organisation.  Any feedback would be appreciated as I'm not sure I can make an informed decision, to remove this section, alone.
--zerorpm 23:11, 2006 May 10 (GMT)
:I don't know what section means, but the article's tone is propagandist. You'd think that European unification was like curing cancer - something objectively good with which no-one could disagree. Well, ask Napoléon's victims or the people of Greece whose economy is stuck in a euro-straitjacket. If the article is to be allowed, it should be more evaluative.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.103.145 (talk) 04:33, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposals for creation

message: Is there really any basis for claiming to know exactly what Winston Churchill 'meant' in his speech?  Shouldn't Wiki confine itself to presenting facts, not interpretations of them?  Perhaps a better way to qualify Churchill's speech would be to point to another speech where he clarified that he didn't see Britain as part of this potential U.S.E.
: user:Paul11 cites a good article that attempts to decipher what Churchill might have meant by reference to his other speeches.  My reading of that article is that it says that he was being deliberately vague and kept his options open.  He didn't rule it out and he didn't rule it in.  It certainly does not reach the conclusion that Paul11 added to the article. --Red King 00:21, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Churchill's opinion

message: Is Russia a 'predominantly European country'?. Is this not a huge sweeping statement, ignoring the age old debate as to whether Russia is more Asian or European?
: Most of the population is in the Europe part, but most of its area is in Asia. Chiss Boy 12:47, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's about as useful as saying Germans are unique. No one disputes either. However, with Europe and Asia considered as imagined political regions, it seems fairly useless to consider Russia as Asian simply because large, sparsely inhabited tracts of land are on the other side of the Urals. Russians are traditionally Christian, speak a language very similar to countries that no one doubts as being 'European' (all the Slavic Eastern European languages), and often have light complexions. Also historically, 'Russia' was traditionally situated ONLY in the European part. Wasn't the expansions east and south part of empire building by Catherine the Great et al?
Finally, how can one discuss European history, economy, politics and culture without including Russia? Can the same be said, to the same extent, of the far or middle East?
Sorry Europe, I think we're stuck with Russia. (jk)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Storleone (talk • contribs) 02:46, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Russia

message: Look at the images of those four superpowers. What do you think?The Anonymous One 07:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To try and draw some parallel between the Roman Empire and the EU in the article would violate its objectivity. This is a common slur used by those with anti-EU sentiments. However, it would be permissable, at a stretch, to include the experience of the Roman Empire in some vaguely historical sense concerning the shared history of European states. In other words, you could use it to make a point that Europe hasn't always been composed of separate nation states but has at times been a unified block. You cannot say that the EU is the political descendant of the Roman Empire however, that's a politically motivated point based on guilt by association. Blankfrackis 15:46, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

text: That's funny. What continent was Rome in again? --Meridius (talk) 13:03, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

text: euhm no; Sweden, Ireland etc were never part of Rome. Todays Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, and Morrocco were. None of the latter are being "reunified" with the EU. The Roman empire was much more a mediterranean empire (indeed the Romans called this see Mare Nostrum - Our Sea) while the EU is a European land (as in not maritime) based union. Arnoutf (talk) 12:27, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  From the Roman Empire to the United States of Europe 

message: The map is pretty much the definition of original research. Completeley unsourced and arbritary. so ive removed it. Willy turner 17:09, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Concur, thanks. There's no reason to assume that the USE would occupy all of Europe any more that the USA stretches from Nunavut to Tierra del Fuego. samwaltz 20:45, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Map

message: The European Space agency is not a part of the EU, it includes countries who aren't EU member states. The sentence at the beginning of the article suggests otherwise. I'll remove it if nobody objects, or maybe we could just rephrase the sentence a little so that it's not explicitly referring to the EU. There are after all many developments external to the EU which could be relevant to this article, though the EU is obviously the most important. Blankfrackis 15:30, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: European Space Agency is not a part of the EU

message: This sentence - "People who oppose and criticize forming a United States of Europe or even a confederation of European nations are called Eurosceptics." is incorrect in my view. One can oppose the creation of a "superstate" and support EU membership. The idea that you either support a European superstate or you're a Eurosceptic is one of the biggest red herrings in debates on the EU. This isn't an obscure point of semantics, undoubtedly the largest percentage of European citizens fall into the category of supporting EU membership but not supporting a "United States of Europe". To call these people Eurosceptics, as this sentence does, is obviously to use the term too liberally. I'll change it if nobody objects. Blankfrackis 15:37, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: One can be against a superstate and still be pro-Europe

message: The ESA was formed completely independent of the EC and the EU and it still has non EU member states as members.  Is it really appropriate to cite the ESA as the EUs space agency?  It seems a bit like citing NATO as the european defence agency.Zebulin (talk) 20:24, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  European Space Agency 

message: This article used to be "United States of Europe", what's going on here? Why was the article moved/merged?
I see that User:Ssolbergj has renamed/moved the article with the reason being "Removes controvercial link to the United States", what on Earth is this supposed to mean?
As far as I can see Ssolbergj has not consulted anyone on this move, and the article is currently a mess. I think we need to seriously consider putting it back the way it was, especially seeing as there has been no explanation given or consultation offered. --Hibernian (talk) 23:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: User:Ssolbergj moved this article from United States of Europe to Federal Europe without any notice whatever.  It is not at all appropriate to move an established article such as this to a new title without seeking discussion and consensus.  The policy WP:Be bold does not justify such a high handed and unilateral behaviour.  An explanation is expected.  --Red King (talk) 23:56, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the idea of the move -- "United States of Europe" is just one of many names given to the concept of a federal Europe, and therefore the article should naturally treat the concept and not one of its names. —Nightstallion 22:49, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I might well agree too, but that's not the point. Major changes should have at least some discussion beforehand. --Red King (talk) 17:20, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

text: Indeed, the idea of merging the articles is not necessarily a bad one (although I'm yet to be convinced of that), but the way it's been done is awful. The reason given is boggling, the people who wrote the article weren't even given the slightest notice and the merger has left both articles looking like a mish-massed mess. --Hibernian (talk) 17:31, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry, I know that being bold renaming articles can be controversial. But I noticed that this article hadn't been edited by anyone other than me for more than two weeks, and I was (and still am) totally convinced that this title would work much better, per what Nightstallion said, so I didn't bother to write a move application on the talk page. - \mathrm{S} \mathrm{Solberg} \mathrm{J} 00:51, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, now that we've agreed that how the change was implemented was not optimal, is there another issue at hand or was that about it? —Nightstallion 16:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've had a go at copy-editing, but it still lurches fairly violently from a discussion of European Federalism to historic proposals for a USE. It could do with fresh eyes. --Red King (talk) 22:38, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's going on with this move? 

message: User:BillCJ tagged the whole article as POV with the edit comment "Added  tag - article paints a biased and often inaccurate views of the USA and its formation, and antagonism towards its system of govenment, with many sections of discussion unsourced entirely.", but did not open a discussion to explain his concerns.  As far as I can guess, his objection is more specific to Federal Europe#United States of Europe, so I have moved the tag to that section.  But really it is incumbent on him to explain his concerns or, better still, improve the article.  I don't deny that this article has a lot of problems because it concerns speculative fiction, nationalism, utopianism and even xenophobia - but the charge of anti-US bias comes way off left field.  Please explain. --Red King (talk) 13:15, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV challenge 

message: After reading this article many times, I am still not sure if the "Historical unifications of Europe" section really belongs to an article on "Federal Europe". None of the imperial conquests mentioned in that section unified Europe and none of them attempted to create a European federation. The section seems to be a bit out of place. I wonder what the most frequent editors of this article think about this issue. Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 04:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree - I never liked it either. It has nothing to do with Federation or confederation or other free association of states. It always seemed to me that it was an attempt to tar the EU with "Guilt by association". Unless someone can produce a case to keep it, it should be deleted. --Red King (talk) 23:13, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Since no one has raised any objections in a week, I have just deleted that problematic section. Andrzej Kmicic (talk) 05:33, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Historical unifications of Europe

message: Inaccurately suggests Lisbon will establish the 'EU'. The 'EU' has been established since the Maastricht Treaty 1992 (adopted 1993).  
:Above comment by 78.158.98.244 moved here from article page. --Boson (talk) 18:48, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problem with colours in {{tl|EU evolvement timeline}}? 

message: Mitterand proposed this in 1991. Perhaps that might be a good addition to the article? - TheMightyQuill (talk) 19:54, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mitterand in 1991 

message: "In the computer game Shattered Union, set in a future civil war in America, the European Union is portrayed as a peacekeeping force."
(from the article)
The EU already exists and has peacekeeping capabilities. I don't see why this concept is related to the idea of a future federal Europe any more than it is to the EU now. Of course, I haven't actually played the thing, so it's possible there's something that I (and the article) am missing. --Islomaniac 973 15:09, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  In fiction 

message: I distinctly remember the former prime minister of Greece (I'm from there) saying in a speech (of some sort I can't recall) something in the lines of "We all agree as members of the European community that the way forward is in the form of a federal administration for Europe .." or something in those lines. This is not some kind of crazy local politician, he said that after years as prime minister roaming the parliaments of Europe. He said it not in the way of some bold statement, it was just something thrown along the lines; i.e. He gave the idea he was saying something completely natural to him that is just accepted by European administration officials. Also; I was just listening to a historic speech of Thatcher where she distinctly says (at this youtube video towards the end) that the Economic union of Europe was a move towards a federation (with the British historically opposing for keeping their own power). --Leladax (talk) 10:01, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure exactly what your point is, as regards the article. I don't think anybody disputes that the EU has many features of a federation or that many within the EU have envisaged a natural path leading ultimately to something like a federal state. Walter Hallstein, the first Commission president even wrote a book referring to it as an "unfinished federal state" (Der unvollendete Bundesstaat).--Boson (talk) 19:00, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  All I'm saying is - sorry, I haven't slept well and the previous message is quite scrambled - that a federal nature for Europe is not just a 'futuristic' idea as the article implies in certain sections or a conspiracy theory. It has been documented that Politicians involved actively in the cycles of the European community (such as Margaret Thatcher and the former prime minister of Greece I mentioned above) have clearly stated that at least a considerable proportion of politicians in Europe do actively seek a federal administrative nature for Europe. --Leladax (talk) 22:47, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

text: OK. I see your point now. Although I think the article is correct if you distinguish carefully between increasing integration towards a union which is increasingly federal in nature and something which is really a "United States of Europe", I can see that two or three sentences might make the general idea seem more speculative than it probably is.--Boson (talk) 06:11, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is not a conspiracy theory. 

message: I'm not sure of the relevance of the sentence "In the past, various empires and military powers have achieved control over large parts of the European continent, and often introduced imperial structures by force. Notable among these are the Roman Empire, the First French Empire, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union." My immediate reaction would be to interpret it as an attempt to taint movement toward European integration with imperial, dictatorial, and fascist associations that have nothing to do with the subject of the article.--Boson (talk) 06:11, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: But not all movements to unify Europe have been democratic. This is a fact. For example, the European Union isn't democratic.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.103.145 (talk) 04:30, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Imperial Europe is not federal Europe

message: I notice the entire fiction section was removed in this edit. Either it should be reinstated (and probably rewritten to be less trivial), or the :Category:Fictional governments should be removed. — sjorford++ 22:15, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fiction section removed? 

message: This article and United States of Europe should probably be merged. They cover the same political ideology of a united Europe. Currently, Talk:United States of Europe redirects here. 84.92.117.93 (talk) 15:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: This article was previously named United States of Europe. It was renamed because there emerged a consensus that "Federal Europe" is a less subjective and more descriptive title. A separate U.S.E. article has been created again, and if anything, I think that article should be merged into this one. - SSJ ☎ 04:10, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there should be separate articles, but a clear division of scope. The federal Europe on the broad European federalism/unification issues and the USE article only on the term "United States of Europe" - i.e. its fictional uses and its application to the concept (but for detail of the concept, direction towards federal europe article of the pre-1945 ideas of european unity article.- J.Logan`t: 18:40, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur. --Red King (talk) 18:21, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this article is based on crystal balling. The federalisation aspect fits entirely in the European integration article. Therefore I propose that this article is merged into the European integration article. - SSJ t 01:52, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I agree with that too.  "Federal Europe" is a POV/CB title and invites POV/CB comments. Texts inEuropean integration  can tested against real information, not eurosceptic speculation. --Red King (talk) 17:56, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Support merge here. Many information is basically the same, as is the main idea. --LoЯd ۞pεth 08:10, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge discussion 

message: The Washington quote used in the United States of Europe article is a fake, manipulated during the translation from English to French and then back to English. The original does not include the phrase "United States of Europe" or anything equivalent. Kauffner (talk) 05:57, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: George Washington quote

message: I think this section could do with some work. It presents the situation as though there is an academic consensus that the European Union is a federation in all but name. There is a huge body of academic literature that would take issue with this: Andrew Moravcsik and other intergovernmentalist academics being the obvious example. 
More than this, however, Kelemen has been quoted in a slightly misleading fashion. He certainly doesn't view the EU as a federation, or anything like a unified state, his argument is that you can explain certain aspects of European integration through federalist concepts, but that the entire arrangement falls short of a federation. He's explicitly stated that the idea of a single European federal state is implausible, here, for instance: 
:"Widespread political opposition to the creation of anything approximating a large, unified executive bureaucracy in Brussels has long-since ended hopes, for the few who harboured them, of creating a European superstate." Kelemen and Tarrant
Blankfrackis (talk) 13:11, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Present Situation

message: The talk page for Federal Europe is this page, the talk page for United States of Europe is a redirect to this page. This means that two pages share one talk page. Does anyone know why? --Khajidha (talk) 19:27, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: United States of Europe and its talkpage were moved to Federal Europe and Talk:Federal Europe on February 2, 2008. Then on October 2, 2009, this edit seems to have copy/pasted the original content, thus restoring United States of Europe (which continued to evolve) but leaving its talkpage as a redirect to this one. Skomorokh 20:18, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

text: Have now fixed by removing redirect from Talk:United States of Europe. --Boson (talk) 20:20, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

text: Despite being (apparently) responsible for the edit, I have to admit that I have only the haziest memory of the edit itself, and I'm not sure why it was done in a way to lead to a false redirect -- though I am sure it wasn't intentional. My apologies.RandomCritic (talk) 21:03, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  What page does this talk page belong with.  

message: Strange there isn't a mention of Napoleon (as he claimed after he was defeated) or the Third Reich in the history of proposing a United Europe...  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.171.128.174 (talk) 11:05, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: This article is about the federalisation of the European Union, an existing political entity, which is a modern concept by definition based on voluntary membership of nation states. Napoleon and the Third Reich are neither modern, they both precede the European Union by quite some time, and they both envisioned "uniting" Europe by force, i.e. by conquering it. InflatableSupertrooper (talk) 14:12, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: In view of the content and tone of 108.171.128.174's comment about EU law, I take the view that his/her above comment, especially the reference to the Third Reich, is simply an expression of the editor's own anti-EU sentiment rather than a serious attempt to provide relevant additional material. In any case, your point about voluntary membership versus force provides sufficient rebuttal to any suggestion that either Napoleon or the Third Reich are relevant to the history section. The fact that they predate the EU by some time is less of an issue, and indeed, the history section does include material going back to the 1920s. --Money money tickle parsnip (talk) 15:38, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Well we are obviously on the same page here, but I wanted to point out that the aticle is about the federalisation of the European Union, not Europe as a continent or some other pre-existing organisation or concept. And today's European Union has evolved from the European Coal and Steel Community which started in 1952, some 130 years after Napoleon's death, and seven years after the Third Reich had been defeated in WWII. So this article should historically constrain itself to political developments from the 1940s or 1950s onwards (and, considering that whether the EU is moving towards a tighter federation or not is a very debatable issue which forms the gist of the divide between Eurosceptics and Europhiles across the continent, this article should be more focused on describing the degree of achieved, perceived and/or proposed federalisation, hopefully in comparison to other federalised entitied like the USA, the UK, etc). The idea of a federalised Europe itself is indeed older then the EU or the ECSC, but these are not what this article is really about, we have United States of Europe for that. InflatableSupertrooper (talk) 16:01, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Understood. I suppose that the existing material on the pre-WWII movement may still be of relevance, if it can be verifiably shown to have had an influence on the development of the EU or its precursor organisations. However, I am not qualified to know whether this is the case, and as the article currently stands there is no source to say that this movement was in fact influential (or for that matter, even that Churchill's 1946 speech was). If you felt that all this should be removed (perhaps added to another article) then I wouldn't object, or if any of it should be kept then really it needs a source to establish that it was influential. In any case, we are clearly well agreed that attempts to unite by force are not of relevance. --Money money tickle parsnip (talk) 13:27, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130120153312/http://www.princeton.edu/~smeunier/Kelemen%20Memo.pdf to http://www.princeton.edu/~smeunier/Kelemen%20Memo.pdf
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080819213748/http://crem.univ-rennes1.fr/wp/2006/ie-200607.pdf to http://crem.univ-rennes1.fr/wp/2006/ie-200607.pdf
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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080531025508/http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com/Article/European-Integration--Westphalian-Cooperation-or-Federalization-/2383 to http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com/Article/European-Integration--Westphalian-Cooperation-or-Federalization-/2383
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The Eurozone map at the start of the article shows Montenegro and Kosovo (and the microstates) as part of the Eurozone. Whilst they use the Euro, they are not a part of the Eurozone and as such that map is wrong.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Synitar (talk • contribs) 11:58, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eurozone map 

message: The UK has now left the EU, and as such should be removed from the EU map. If anyone is familiar with using the maps commonly found on wikipedia, the removal of the UK from it would be appreciated!
Porcelain katana (talk) 23:24, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of UK from EU map 

message: Despite ostensibly being different topics, all 3 pages cover largely the same content.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.12.40.102 (talk) 15:14, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge with 'United States of Europe' and 'European integration' articles? 

message: The map of the EEA at the top of the article appears to show the UK in the EEA. My understanding is that the UK is not part of the EEA. Is it possible to correct this, please? RomanSpa (talk) 10:37, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in map of the EEA 

message: This seems to have been unilaterally merged into United States of Europe by @Micga. Where was the consensus for this? Why did you essentially delete a whole article?
I would like to restore this article, but if there's some consensus I'm not aware about, or you have some argument that'll convince me against doing so, I'd like to hear about that first.first.
XA1dUXvugi (talk) 10:51, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: That merge should absolutely be undone pending discussion and consensus. I would certainly argue against it since the USoE is a hypothetical or fictional idea, whereas federalisation is a real direction of travel, with documented phases. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:31, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Now that I am using the desktop interface, I see that the merged version has been in place since November of last year. So at this stage, consensus is needed to "demerge" the article. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:16, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: No consensus was there to merge it in the first place. Had anyone seen it before now, I'm sure it would've been undone. I don't see what's wrong with undoing it now. If someone disagrees, they are free to revert that. XA1dUXvugi (talk) 17:14, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: i don't have time to look right now but does European integration meet the need? If so, should that be the target for the redirect? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 23:06, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't. European integration is an overview of the organisations in Europe - in particular the EU. It doesn't talk about what this article does/did talk about; the federalisation of the EU. XA1dUXvugi (talk) 19:42, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

text: I have reverted it for now. If there is a consensus that the merge should actually take place, this can be reverted. I don't it think it should, as the article's own heading makes clear: this article is about the federalisation of the EU, not a hypothetical and wider European federation that doesn't exist. XA1dUXvugi (talk) 10:03, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I support 's reversion. "Federalisation of the EU" is a process, "United States of Europe" / "European Federation" are hypothetical end points. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:59, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

text: An additional piece of information to be considered, that sums up the motivation behind this revert very well: Talk:European integration#Merge with 'United States of Europe' and 'Federalisation of the European Union' articles. Tl;dr: European Federalism, European integration, and this article are all separate subjects. XA1dUXvugi (talk) 17:13, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge? 

message: While they use EUR, only the 20 EU members are considered Eurozone members.
Kosovo & Montenegro aren't part of eurozone and should therefore be removed from the map.Hexadecimal16 (talk) 10:44, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kosovo & Montenegro are not Eurozone members and should be removed from the Eurozone map 

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:European Federation which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 19:50, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move discussion in progress