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European Federation (May 12, 2000)

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That is why Jacques Delors, Helmut Schmidt, and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing have recently tried to find new solutions to this dilemma. Delors’ idea is that a “federation of nation-states,” comprising the six founding states of the European Community, should conclude a “treaty within the treaty” with a view to making far-reaching reforms to European institutions. Schmidt and Giscard’s ideas are in a similar vein, though they place the 11 Euro states at the center, rather than just the six founding states. As early as 1994 Karl Lamers and Wolfgang Schäuble proposed the creation of a “core Europe,” but it was stillborn, as it were, because it presupposed an exclusive, closed “core,” even omitting the founding state Italy, rather than functioning as a magnet of integration open to all.

So if the alternative for the EU in the face of the irrefutable challenge posed by eastern enlargement is indeed either erosion or integration, and if clinging to a federation of states would mean standstill with all its negative repercussions, then, under pressure from conditions and the crises provoked by them, the EU will be faced with this alternative at some point within the next ten years: Will a majority of member states take the leap into full integration and agree on a European constitution? Or, if that doesn’t happen, will a smaller group of member states take this route as an avant-garde, i.e. will we see the emergence of a center of gravity comprised of a few member states that are staunchly committed to the European ideal and are in a position to push ahead with political integration? The question then would simply be: When will the right time be? Who will be involved? And will this center of gravity emerge inside or outside the framework provided by the treaties? At least one thing is certain: no European project will succeed in the future without the closest Franco-German cooperation.

Given this situation, one could imagine Europe’s further development far beyond the coming decade in two or three stages:

First, the expansion of reinforced cooperation between those states that want to cooperate more closely than others, as is already the case with the Economic and Monetary Union and with Schengen. We can make progress in this way in many areas: in the further development of the Euro 11 into a politico-economic union, in environmental protection, the fight against crime, the development of common immigration and asylum policies, and of course in foreign and security policy. In this context, it is of paramount importance that closer cooperation not be misunderstood as the end of integration.

One possible interim step on the road to completing political integration could then be the formation of a center of gravity. Such a group of states would conclude a new European framework treaty, the nucleus of a constitution of the Federation. On the basis of this treaty, the Federation would develop its own institutions, establish a government that within the EU should speak with one voice on behalf of the members of the group on as many issues as possible, a strong parliament, and a directly elected president. Such a center of gravity would have to be the avant-garde, the driving force for the completion of political integration, and it should from the start comprise all the elements of the future federation.

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