Europe as a Union

Way Yuhl wrote a brief history in two parts of Europe as a union. From 1618 and 1648, Europe was engulfed in what came to be called the Thirty Years’ War. The bone of contention? Who should the respective kings “report” to, the ultimate authority, the Pope or the Holy Roman Emperor?

“The Thirty Years’ War was the worst of Europe’s wars over who would rule the continent, and it settled nothing.”

 

The war concluded with what is called the Peace of Westphalia:

“The Peace ended the war by ending the idea of a single authority. It replaced it with the idea of sovereign states, each ruled by its own leader, who did not answer to a higher power. Scholars mark this as the start of the modern state system, the world of separate, self-ruling countries that still exists today.”

(Take that with a lot of salt: such self-rule was only for Europe, not Africa, Asia or South America).

 

Sounds good in theory. Independent kingdoms/countries in Europe. In practice, it led to endless conflicts culminating in two World Wars.

“The survivors of those wars decided national self-rule was now the danger, not the solution. They began to build a union that would put a common set of rules and a common authority in control of the nations. That union became the European Union.”

The wheel had come full circle!

“The union asks twenty-seven nations to accept a body that can make rules all of them must obey. This is the exact thing their ancestors fought the Thirty Years’ War to abolish.”

 

But it was (and remains) a confused Union, chiefly due to one topic:

“How much power should the union wield and how much should stay with each nation?... Each time the union gains power, that power goes to Brussels. And each time, the people who want that power kept in their own capital resist.”

 

Until recently, the EU could let (had to leave?) certain policy decisions with the US – defense, and high level foreign policy. The focus of the EU thus was mostly on economic matters. Open borders, a common currency, EU laws that override certain national ones.

 

But now, things have changed. The US is increasingly unwilling to spend on European security, they want Europe to do more, spend more on defense. The US even threatened to annex Greenland. This puts the EU in a tough spot. Do they try and created a unified EU military force? Who funds how much for it? How many troops from different members? Even if they come up with some such army, would the Germans or French be willing to die for some eastern European member? Which countries would have operating control over the unified force?

 

Can the EU unify militarily (new) and economically (done already) while being separate politically? Is that even possible? Or would the EU remain divided militarily since political unification is hard? And if it can’t be unified militarily and if the US umbrella recedes, how might that embolden Russia? Or would it result in more agreements and concessions with Russia?

 

Lots of questions for the EU to decide, with lots of unpredictable aspects and consequences.