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7/10/15

The United States of Europe: Inspiration from India? - by Stephen Green

There are powerful voices who suggest that the United States of Europe could have had no future. They say it is an overly ambitious design.

But what about India? This, after all, is indeed a country with a vibrant democracy, a rich and colorful cultural diversity, 29 states and seven union territories and over 40 official languages.

If India can manage such a Union successfully, why can’t the wealthy Europeans, with all their means, do so as well?

The answer to this provocative question is clear: First, the new India was not born in peace and consensus, but in bitter and violent strife. That strife resulted in the breakaway of a huge area of historic India into Pakistan (and what subsequently became Bangladesh).

What we have instead is a European Union that is on a unique journey. It has progressed from an economic starting point, from a coal and steel community through a common market and the European Economic Community to what is now the European Union, through a series of treaties, which have continually increased the degree of integration.

But now it is subject to the real risk of fragmentation for the first time in its relatively short history.

Whether or not the Greeks are able to find a new modus vivendi in the eurozone, there is no turning back from this journey. From a technical point of view, the increasing integration of the eurozone is effectively a one-way street.

Even more fundamentally, it would be existentially impossible — particularly for Germany — to withdraw from a project whose collapse would unravel the whole tissue of European integration that has been woven since 1949.

And what is true for Germany is true just as much at least for the founding members of the original European project – the signatories of the original Treaty of Rome. And none of the other members want to see it unravel either.

There is an inevitable price to pay for this: painful adjustments in weaker economies and financial support from the stronger ones – both of which are of course deeply unpopular.

But it is a price that will be paid. Equally inevitably, it poses a serious challenge for the British, many of whom have always been lukewarm about the European project and do not relish the “ever closer union,” which is envisaged in the foundational treaties of the EU.

Read more: The United States of Europe: Inspiration from India? - The Globalist

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