The Political Definition of Empire

Political scientists defining the EU as an imperial polity do so in reference to a very specific definition of empire. At this point, it’s important to stop and keep in mind that such definition – like most definitions in the field – is arbitrary to a degree, subjective, and usually quite distinct from the vernacular meaning. This means that its applicability to everyday language is limited. No matter how many papers are published detailing lists of supposed EU imperial characteristics, European citizens are unlikely to start referring to the Union as an empire any time soon. Nevertheless, given the growing references in the academic literature, it is interesting to explore what lens European integration is being read through.

Scholars such as Hoerber, Sigalas, Muenkler, Grande, and others define an “empire” as a more fragmented alternative to the modern, territorial nation-state. Rather than a classical pre-national political entity based on military might (like the Roman Empire) or a hegemonic project on the part of a nation-state to assert dominion over the planet (like the British Empire), the European Union would be classified as a new type of empire, with some critical differences. Traditional empires (and, to some degree, nation-states) have a centralised institutional framework, with a distinctive capital from which all power emanates to the periphery. This is a far cry from the mesh of regional, national, and supranational governance the EU is built upon.

Clear borders are one of the hallmarks of nation-states, but imperial borders tend to be fuzzy. Scholars point to the uncertainty surrounding European borders – while EU membership is pretty distinct, the circles of affiliation involving the EEA, EFTA, and various special partnerships, make the European borderlands considerably harder to pin down exactly in a political and economic dimension. But where a traditional empire typically involves an exploitative relationship between the centre and the periphery, driven by a monocephalic power structure, an imperial polity is driven by civil and cooperative policymaking. The fragmentation of institutions leads to a polycephalic system of power, where “loser’s consent” is a fundamental requirement for every policy. The taboo of violence, rather than coercive violence towards the periphery, is what these authors place at the heart of European integration.

Scholars also cite an overarching mission as a defining characteristic of old and new empires – as opposed to nation-states, whose primary concern is their preservation and furthering of their interests. This kind of imperial mission is a specific, ontological purpose that justifies the existence of the political entity. For the European Union, this objective is regularly identified as the establishment of peace and prosperity in Europe, following the calamity of the two world wars. This mission is what motivates the EU’s continued existence, and serves as the “guiding light” of its policies.

Imperial Priorities

Scholars who adopt this definition of the EU as an imperial polity are quick to point out this has real-world implications, mostly apparent in European political debate. Furthering peace, security and prosperity across a sphere comprising multiple nations is one such implication, which usually goes hand in hand with the promotion of economic prosperity. Preoccupations about both areas figure prominently in debates about European integration and crisis management.

More importantly, there is a clear civilisational divide between the imperial polity and the outside world, which is contrasted with domestic political life for its stark differences in values and norms. For instance, European attitudes that go beyond national specifics – on subjects like healthcare, foreign policy, human rights etc – are often defined in opposition to the other great powers of the day, such as the United States, Russia, and China. This divide is typically not met with hostility, but with a desire to promote one’s values abroad. The European Union is certainly greatly preoccupied with strengthening democratic standards across the world, for example by including human rights clauses wherever possible when striking trade deals with third countries.

Last but not least, policy both at home and abroad should be in accordance with the overall mission at the heart of the political entity. If this means promoting human rights and free trade abroad, it also means fighting against corruption and stimulating economic development at home. Most critically, the imperial polity becomes a successful mediator for political conflicts between its centre and its periphery. Thanks to its decentralised structure, and the common desire from the various political actors to have stakes in the outcome of negotiations, the millennia-old practice of imperial discrimination on its borderlands is avoided.

A Union by any Other Name

When looking at the above criteria, we can see why an increasing number of political scientists refer to the EU as an imperial polity. However, the earlier caveats on subjectivity and arbitrariness remain. All we can really say for certain is that the analysis is internally consistent, based on the parameters established at the outset. To put it bluntly, that doesn’t mean it’s “true”, broadly speaking. Whether it’s politically expedient, useful, or accurate from a communication standpoint to label the EU as an empire is an open question, and one which non-academics can reasonably be sceptical about. The term did make its way outside of academia, as noted by Hoerber and Sigalas. EU Commission President Barroso said as much in 2007, claiming that the EU was the world’s “first non-imperial empire”.

Ultimately, it is hard not to escape the conclusion that this is just another chapter in the constant soul-searching that marks European political culture. “What is the EU?” is a question that evades simple answers. There is no historical or contemporary equivalent for this ambitious project of regional integration, and attempts to make the EU fit the categories of the past always come up somewhat short of the mark. Sitting somewhere between being an international organisation, a confederation of states, a federal state in its own right, or a multi-national federation, the EU is a bit of all the above, but neither of those can describe it fully and accurately.

“Empire” is a definition that is, therefore, in good company – a partially accurate attempt, at best, to define a daring political project that defies definition. Whether it will have more success than its counterparts will have to be seen. The European Union will continue to change and deal with a difficult world around it, but the quest for a handy label to describe it still has no end in sight.

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This narrative, which is particularly popular online, is also seeping through public debate. One need only take a look at Emmanuel Macron‘s speeches to see the conflating of western European (or even French) values with those of the entire Union, sidestepping what is actually listed in the Treaties. The picture painted is more or less thus: the original founding countries are able and willing to push forward along the path of ever closer union. The partners that joined in the two eastern enlargements, on the other hand, are backward and stubbornly opposed to more integration, thus holding the entire project back. Some even draw the conclusion that the EU has expanded too fast, and that proper federalisation had to take precedence over enlargement.

This is a comforting narrative, at least for western Europeans. It also contains a kernel of truth: concerns about the rule of law and separation of powers in Eastern European Member States are legitimate and well-grounded. It is also undeniable that these countries and their governments have been quick in pointing to Brussels as a scapegoat for all their ills. What does not follow is the belief that, in their absence, the rest of the continent could speedily achieve unification. Upon closer scrutiny, this belief is revealed to be little more than wishful thinking.

In Search of a Liberal Core

The first problem, when romanticising the EU’s supposed western liberal core, is defining its borders. When it comes to dogged defence of State autonomy, Austria is not that different from Poland. Even if one assumes that the demarcation overlaps with the old ideological borders of the Cold War, the comparison does not look stronger. The current Italian government, which openly cites Orbán as a role model, has no claim on a moral high ground over Eastern Europe. In the United Kingdom, the Tories (who share ECR membership with the ruling Law and Justice party in Poland) are entrenched both in protection of the establishment and in some cases literal aristocracy – hardly a better track record than the Czech Republic or Slovakia.

One may refine this even further, and argue that the western integrationist core corresponds to at least five of the six original founders. This subdivision, however, also fails scrutiny. France has done much to retain its autonomy, particularly in foreign policy and security. The Kingdom of the Netherlands – a liberal western European country if ever there was one – remains one of the most determined opponents of federalisation, especially on military matters and Eurozone reform.

When it comes to European integration and European political culture, there is no such thing as a pro-integration, liberal core. Significantly more lip service is paid in the West to the ideas and values of European integration, but the willingness to translate that into a meaningful pooling of sovereignty is low. French vetoes date back to the foundation of the Coal and Steel Community, and the recent wave of illiberalism sweeping across the West has dimmed prospects even further.

The Blame Game

The turn towards illiberalism is a common phenomenon all over the Western world, even at its margins like in the Philippines. The Republican Party in the United States started to change in the early 1990s with the likes of Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich, when the EU was newborn and ended at the Oder. This point cannot be repeated too often: what is branded as “populism” in current political discourse is, as a phenomenon, very much independent of the EU and its existence, let alone its membership composition.

Its specific European manifestation is also significant to this argument. Several European countries have increasingly shifted towards illiberal positions – not just in Eastern Europe, but also in the west. Track records on integration are negative all across the map. It is completely unfair – and in many ways gaslighting – to blame Eastern Europe for the halt to integration.

The UK undoubtedly holds the record of vetoes, exemptions, and red lines, covering a broad range of matters from collective defence to the single currency. London’s outright exemption from the principle of ever closer union was in itself an admission of defeat for serious prospects of political unification. Britain’s prominence, however, shouldn’t blind us to the obstacles placed by others. Britain itself was often an excellent alibi for other sceptical countries, allowing to entirely skirt discussion on topics like common defence because London had already vetoed them anyway.

Several European Member States didn’t even need this alibi to shoot down integration. France voted down the proposed European Constitution in a referendum. While it is currently busy trading thinly veiled accusations with Germany over who is falling short on what initiative, it has also displayed a dogged determination at patrolling its own borders in the wake of the refugee crisis. Denmark also has opt outs, and is profoundly sceptical of further integration. The Netherlands, Germany, and all Nordics are squarely against Eurozone reform, while their equivalents in Club Med are vehemently against aligning their policies to those required to make a banking union function.

The conclusion is inescapable: there is no popular legitimacy anywhere in Europe for more integration. But if European integration is dead in the water, who is the culprit? Curiously, very few political camps in the Union have actually owned up to the chronic lack of political will that allowed this to happen. Pointing fingers and outsourcing the blame is a popular strategy, but it leads down a dangerous road – one with no answers and an abundance of acrimony.

Eastern Europe Is Europe

When the discussion moves to the economy and workers’ movement, its ugliness becomes all the more apparent. A popular narrative, particularly among left-wing circles in Italy and France, is that the eastern enlargement was driven by companies in the quest for cheap labour. Reinterpreting the enlargement as a product of shadowy forces is a way of delegitimising it. The short-sightedness of this argument is so total that it’s hard to tackle what makes it so wrong.

The Single Market, of course, grants freedom to trade and move across the Union, and that naturally includes businesses. Ultimately, however, the Single Market is also about long-term economic convergence. Companies truly committed to a quest for cheap labour on meaningful time-scales go to South-East Asia – wages in eastern Europe will not remain low forever. Thirdly, and most importantly: businesses do not dictate EU policy, nor that of its Member States. There is no secret cabal of corporations who manipulate governments from the shadows.

There is little doubt that powerful economic actors like corporations have played a role in European integration, and that these same actors can count on powerful lobbyists. But this is part and parcel of political life in any democratic country. The belief that these actors could unilaterally drive a political undertaking of such a scale based on profit sheets alone is close to a conspiracy theory – the obsessive quest for an agent on whom to pin the blame.

Paradoxically, Eastern Europe tends to be a lot more outspoken than the West in its support for the EU in general, in spite of the sometimes stark disagreements over the rule of law and democratic values. This is no coincidence: for many of these Member States, the EU and NATO are a matter of survival, not of policy-making. With an aggressive Russia to the east, and a history of totalitarian dictatorship still eerily close in their past, there is little room for geopolitical experiments. Hungary is at present the only Member State in Eastern Europe bucking the trend, and openly adopting an openly friendly position towards Russia.

The entrance of Eastern Europe into the EU was a bold political act that took place within a limited window of opportunity. Together with NATO’s expansion, it banished the spectre of further Russian domination of the newly independent countries. Renouncing it over political rows is another classic example of the myopia that affects European political culture.

Meaningful Unity

Ultimately, playing the blame game by exploiting regional rivalries is the epytome of failures when it comes to integration discourse. European unity is about undoing the damage the continent wrought upon itself through two global conflicts and the Cold War. The latter in particular divided Europe in half for forty years, resulting in very different experiences, problems, and ways of looking at the world. The hypothetical future unification of Europe resembles the reunification of Germany, but on a much larger scale.

This can feel daunting – and so it should. The quest for peaceful, democratically legitimate European unity is an ambitious and unprecedented undertaking, one spanning many generations. This lofty goal cannot be meaningfully pursued without keeping an eye on the obstacles that lie on the road ahead. It will take decades to even start mitigating the damage done by forty years of division, Communist dictatorship, and foreign occupation of the eastern half of the continent. Playing the blame game, however, is one sure way of failing in this grand endeavour.

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Running parallel to Wilson’s initiative in the United States, a few intellectuals, politicians and activists in the Old Continent, whose bodies and minds still suffered the consequences of war, were starting to conceive a different configuration of Europe, one that would put into question the centrality of nation-states and their borders. They were the pioneers of contemporary European regionification (Van Langenhove 2011, 67).

The rise of regionification

Even though heavily influenced by French exceptionalism (Imbert 1989), the writer Jules Romaines imagined common economic institutions in Europe alongside with a European civil society. His ideas were shared by the French Prime Minister Joseph Caillaux, who even pushed for a single currency (Pasture 2015, 104). In their book European Federation or League of Nations?, published in 1918, the Italian economist Attilio Cabiati and the entrepreneur Giovanni Agnelli argued in favour of a European federation with legislative, executive and judicial powers (Ibid, 102). Following a similar line, the German pacifist and satirical author Kurt Tucholsky advocated for the United States of Europe (King 2001, 169) and criticized the intergovernmental structure of the LoN, that made the organization weak and ineffective against international crises.

Indeed, within Europeanist circles many voices raised in favour of the League’s reform and more precisely of its decentralization, so that it would shift its focus from the global level to a regional one. We could refer to this approach as “open regionalism”, which considered the LoN complementary to the deepening of regional integration (Richards 2012, 234).

However, demands of European unity did not come solely from pacifists and internationalists, but attracted attention from other areas of the political spectrum as well. Some conservatives and reactionaries made the case for a united Europe out of concern that Europeans and their colonies would lose their privileged centrality on the world stage in favour of the emerging powers such as US, Japan, USSR (Pasture 2015, 106)

These selected examples show that a certain willingness to shape a new regional community was already present in most of Western Europe decades before the first bricks of the European Union were laid. However, these sentiments were met with strong scepticism by policymakers and hardly attracted any support from common citizens.

The liberal internationalist underpinnings were targeted with harsh criticism especially by the classical realist school, which conceived the international system as inherently anarchic and state-dominated;. The absence of a global government with the monopoly of violence, according to them, left the international arena at the mercy of states and their pursuit of self-interest. Liberal internationalism would later be renamed “idealism” by classical realist scholars because of its prescriptive, rather than descriptive nature: internationalists dedicated much time to explain how the world should be, but not much to enucleate the causes of war and power politics (Carr 1939).

Kalergi: being European in the interwar period

It was the undertakings of Count Richard Von Caudenhove-Kalergi that left the mark of pan-Europeanism on the interwar period. Son of an Austro-Hungarian diplomat and a Japanese noble-woman, he grew up in a cosmopolitan environment that would mark his future self. His thought, sincerely pacifist as well as proudly conservative and aristocratic, can be acknowledged as a synthesis of the many integrationist voices raised in that period.

In the book Pan-Europa, published in 1923, he addressed the disunity of Europe in a world by that time grounded on regional blocs. He referred to the Soviet Union and the United States as military and financial dictatorships respectively, to which Europe had to represent an alternative. The third threat was to be found within Europe, and that was the perennial Franco-German rivalry. With a proposal that sounds prophetic today, he suggested to entrust a Pan-European Coal and Steel Community with the management of French and German resources (Prettenthaler-Ziegerhofer 2012, 92). However, Europe’s rationale to create a cohesive bloc was not only determined by external and internal threats; indeed, he conceived arts, science and the common Christian-Hellenic roots as potentially unifying factors (ibid, 97).

While Kalergi’s concept of united Europe was rather similar to those introduced by contemporary intellectuals, his aristocratic origins granted him access to a plethora of high-ranking contacts among European political élites that he employed to gather consensus around the idea. Throughout the interwar years and beyond, he committed with perseverance to the pursuit of peace and convinced notable personalities that the attempt to unite the continent in order to avoid another vicious conflict was worth of consideration.

Following the publication of the book, Kalergi set up the Pan-European Movement with the aim to popularize the program and pressure policymakers; the extent of his influence is represented by the Briand Plan. In 1929, following heavy persuasion from Kalergi, the French President put forward the idea of a “European federation” at the ninth Congress of the LoN after having previously discussed the issue with the German president Gustav Stresemann, who had agreed even though with less enthusiasm.

However, Britain’s opposition and Stresemann’s sudden death delivered a fatal blow to Briand’s plan (Stirk 1996, 37). Later on, Hitler’s rise to power endangered the very existence of the Pan-European movement, which eventually ended up being outlawed by the Nazi regime (ibid, 99). Like some of the personalities previously mentioned, Kalergi was initially hopeful that the LoN would help re-establish international peace, but as events unfolded – the 1936 Italian invasion of Abyssinia, for instance – he became dominated by a sense of frustration and disappointment.  Nationalism, indeed, had come to rule once again the European political scene, leaving no space to grand designs of revolutionary stamp.

Pan-Europeanism and regional awareness       

The idea of Pan-Europeanism can be analyzed more in dept through the theories of regionalism. Hurrell’s theoretical perspectives, in particular, can help shed light on the reasons that triggered integrationist activism and on the obstacles encountered on its way towards actual regionalization. Two levels of analysis strike as most useful in this context: the systemic and regional.

Systemic level

For what concerns systemic theories, neorealism is of little help in understanding the emergence of early pan-Europeanism but provides a rather satisfactory explanation on why it failed in its endeavour. While Kalergi feared that Europe would find itself unprepared in case of a Soviet invasion, there was no meaningful geopolitical pressure exerted by outside powers that would push European countries together during the interwar years. These, instead, were too busy at keeping Germany at bay, while the US were not considered competitors but generous allies (see the Young plan).

Constructivism stresses the importance of ideas, values and other non-material factors in international relations; Kalergi and other conservative Europeans saw in bolshevism a sword of Damocles hanging over Europe. But as long as Nazi Germany kept threatening its neighbours, only a few were paying attention to the propagation of the communist ideology from the East.

In summary, the fragmentation of Europe was indeed perceived by some as problematic in a global context where the Old Continent was being outpaced by new geopolitical powers – the two dictatorships, in Kalergi’s words – incubating dangerous ideologies. However these feelings were not widespread at all as the German Question monopolized the minds of European policymakers.

Regional level

The regional level of analysis offers more valuable insights on early Pan-Europeanism as it investigates intra-regional dynamics rather than outside-in global pressures (Hurrell 1995, 58), whose extent was at the time limited. A constructivist reading would focus on the role of ideas behind Pan-Europeanism and the mechanism of élite socialization conceived to transform the new imagined community (Anderson 1983) into something concrete.

Pacifists identified the nationalist ideology as a source of major concern for the stability of the continent. Indeed, inter-state hostilities had produced countless deaths in Europe’s battlefields only a few years before the Pan-European Movement was set up. Consequently, many feared that the heavy toll imposed on Germany with the Treaty of Versailles (1919) could revive negative sentiments and drive Europe towards another destructive war.

Kalergi devised a stepped process that would embed European countries into a supranational framework thus preventing them to wage war against each other. First a Pan-European conference and then a series of arbitrary treaties and a customs union (Stirk 1997, 26) would constitute a regional linkage eventually leading nations to mold reciprocal sentiments of solidarity. The cultural premises of such architecture were to be found in the Christian-Hellenic roots that European countries shared and the consequent “cognitive region” (Amitav 2012, 188) that these elements would potentially inspire.

However, national interests and material factors ended up prevailing over the ideational considerations put on the table. Despite attempts to expand the network, the process mainly involved personalities from European epistemic communities – diplomats, bankers, aristocrats, intellectuals; in fact, Kalergi’s Pan-European project suffered from an elitist, top-down and, to some, anti-socialist nature (ibid, 27) that would ultimately prevent it from reaching the masses and popularize its message. Regional awareness only concerned a small percentage of individuals as common citizens and most of government officials remained attached to the state-centric paradigm inaugurated centuries earlier with the Peace of Westphalia (1648).

The failure of the Briand Plan

The conceiving and failure of the Briand Plan can be better explained from a neorealist and regional perspective. It was strictly related to the interplay between France and Germany and, more in general, to the striving of Western countries to arrange a new balance of power in the continent. The plan was welcomed with mixed feelings by German officials. Some mistrusted Briand and saw in its proposal the creation of an anti-American organization that would overlap with the LoN and entrap Germany in a French dominated framework.

Although Briand spoke of a European Federation, he guaranteed that all the members would have retained full sovereignty. This contrasted with the very definition of federalism, which necessarily entails some kind of sovereignty transfer from the state to the federal level of governance. Ultimately, the Briand Plan can be understood as a tool for France to reassert its control over Germany, which it was progressively losing. This would later be testified in the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance (1935).

Britain also eventually opposed the plan, out of concern that it would interfere with the Kingdom’s transatlantic bonds and damage the cohesion of the empire. Moreover, the political nature of the plan deeply concerned both countries, as such leap forward would have threatened their autonomy (ibid, 37).

Conclusion

A similar dynamic would resurface in the post-WWII period, when Schuman presented his plan. France proposed once again a framework that would keep Germany under strict control. However, a definite contextualization could explain why this time the attempt was crowned with success.

First, the Community envisioned by Schuman was a strictly economic one (Schuman 1950). This setting, as neo-functionalists argue, triggered the spillover effects that would have ultimately led, out of necessity rather than out of idealism, to some form of political union (Söderbaum 2008, 480). Second, the US isolationist foreign policy of the interwar period had come to an end. Americans started challenging the USSR through a policy of containment that also involved pressures toward Western European countries to set up a flourishing economic community.

Lastly, with the Soviet geopolitical influence reaching the heart of Europe, the Christian-Democratic party élites at the time governing in most of Western Europe feared that communism would spread in their countries as well and therefore committed themselves to a regional solution.

Bibliography

An earlier version of this article was originally written for the University of Leiden. 

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In this article, we will look at the status of secession in international law, look at countries that grant the right to secede, and examine Article 50 of the Treaty of the European Union as an example of a formalised procedure for separation.

Right of Secession in International Law

Secession is a delicate subject, since it deals with fundamental aspects of present-day politics, above all the right to self-determination, and the sovereignty and unity of the state.
In recent years, international law has normally favoured the latter rather than the former, in the name of sustaining the stability of the international system. There has however been one exception: the right of self-determination of colonial people and states.
In addition to this, there is at least some support for the right to secede as a reaction to ethnic cleansing and genocide, with Kosovo being the most well-known example.

Nonetheless, this did not prevent secessions or secessionist attempts all over the world. A new, great wave of secessions occurred with the fall of the Soviet Union: fifteen new states emerged from the collapse of the USSR. Seven more came into existence with the fall of Yugoslavia. Czechoslovakia ceased to exist and gave birth to two different states. In the third world, South Sudan represents one of the newest sovereign states. Just one year ago, the whole world witnessed the secessionist attempt in Catalonia and the subsequent crackdown by Spanish authorities.

Historically and in academia, federalism and secession have been considered as antithetical cases, since federalism has the purpose of preserving unity between different constituent units (Stepan, 2005). In this light, secession is portrayed as a failure of federalism, especially when the parent state is a federation, a former federation or a regionalised, decentralised state, and the new state is a former constituent unit (Sanjaume I Calvet, 2018).

A Constitutional Right of Secession?

Currently, among the constitutional laws of the world, only two states carry the right of secession in their constitution: Ethiopia, and the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. In the Ethiopian case, each constituent unit can, through a specific process described in Article 39, demand their secession from the federation. In the case of Saint Kitts and Nevis, a micro-federation composed of two islands, only Nevis has the right of secession.

The constitution describes the procedure that Nevis has to undergo in order to achieve independence. More specifically, secession can only be achieved through a referendum, provided that the separatist cause receives a supermajority of 2/3 of the voters. The theory was tested in practice in 1998, with the holding of an independence referendum in the island of Nevis. The referendum was invalidated: the votes in favour of independence reaching almost 62%, a whopping number which nonetheless fell short of the supermajority rule.

The enshrining of a right of secession in a federal constitution typically provides for the possibility of an orderly separation. It also protects those citizens who could be specifically harmed by the process, and ensures that secession is only a last resort scenario. This means that not only there is a parliamentary procedure to follow, but referenda also must meet a supermajority, as in the case of Nevis. Among former states, the Soviet constitution of 1936 also included the right of secession, although this remained a dead letter, like the vast majority of the document.

Secession Without Constitutional Guarantees

In a Bodinian vision of the state, sovereignty is considered impossible to split or divide, and therefore, subnational units cannot secede. In this view, the presence of a right of secession, or withdrawal as in the case of the EU, indicates that the political entity is not a state, but a non-state (i.e. a confederation or an international organisation).

The Bodinian view is rooted in the idea that the preservation of unity is one of the fundamental purposes of the state in the first place. However, it makes exceptions in cases where secession can solve conflicts, when other political solutions based on territorial autonomy and power-sharing fail.
This view is questionable and has attracted considerable criticism. Even on an empirical level, while many federal constitutions do not mention a right of secession and a related procedure, there remain other avenues to achieve separation.

Quebec and Canada represent a specific case. Voters in Quebec rejected independence twice, once in 1980 and again in 1995 with a lower margin. In both cases, the independence vote was called, in spite of the lack of a secession clause in the Canadian constitution. In 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that unilateral secession was not legal, but, in case of a referendum agreed by all parties, the rest of Canada had no right to forbid secession. In other words, the ruling established secession as a political, rather than strictly legal decision. The Clarity Act in 2000 settled the procedure regulating secessions of their provinces.

A very similar case is that of Scotland in 2014. Since the UK has constitutional customs and procedures, but not a constitution, the Scottish and British government reached a political deal in 2012, known as the Edinburgh agreement, clearing the way for a Scottish independence referendum. The referendum eventually failed in 2014.

As we have seen, the lack of specific constitutional provisions for secession, does not mean that secessions are automatically forbidden. This is true of other political entities: some lawyers argue that, if one of the cantons were to try and secede from Switzerland, a constitutional amendment might just be discussed and passed with the constitutional procedure, to allow the canton to secede. In the United States, a landmark case, Texas v White, ruled on by the supreme court in 1869, declared unilateral secessions illegal. Secessions are allowed only in case of revolution or consent of all parts.

Article 50: Withdrawal or Secession?

Separations are, to some extent, a form of secession. A key difference is that secession implies an asymmetry between the seceding unit and the parent state, while separation implies a form of symmetry between the two separating units. This was the case with Czecoslovakia: the two constituent republics agreed to split, resulting in the extinction of the former country and the emergence of two new entities.

The fact that the European Union has a right of secession, or withdrawal, is one of the main features that defines the EU as a polity other than a state, independent of its taxonomy. The economic and stability arguments might not play in favour of secessions or withdrawals, like in the case of Brexit, but the fact that the option can be unilaterally triggered or revoked is now out of the question, and it’s unlikely that any attempt at restricting this ability in the future would prove productive. The EU is, therefore, likely to keep Article 50 in place even in the event of further integration and outright federalisation.

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European nation-States, however, are not the undisputed protagonists they once were. The outcome of the Second World War fatally weakened them. Forty years of truncated agency as a battlefield of the Cold War have reduced their clout. In more recent times, the development of the EU as a supranational entity, paired with the rise of globalisation, has called the role of member States into question.

Naturally, the topic is of great interest to European federalists of all inclinations, since it touches on a wide variety of issues, ranging from the resolution of disputes to the division of competences within the European project. Inevitably, this has also led to the promotion of pre-conceived political narratives, such as the role of regions in a united Europe.

Regions are an integral part of Europe…

Regions have an important role to play in the European Union as a fledging multi-level governance polity. The relationship between Brussels and European regions is tight-knit and has seen levels of local development superior to those achievable under the framework of centralised and unitary States. Making local politics more relevant means reducing the arbitrariness of member States, redressing disputes, and easing coexistence between Europeans.

This success story provides a model for the future of continental integration. European governance could happen differently at all levels: municipalities, regions, States, State clusters, and federal government would take on different competencies, rather than competing over prerogatives and accountability.

… but the nation-State is here to stay

However, it is doubtful that this strong relationship represents a fundamental crisis of member States as actors in the EU, and the same would probably hold true for a united, federal Europe. Instead, what we are seeing is precisely the emergence of true multi-level governance, in which regions take on more responsibilities for local governance, States remain key political and institutional actors, and State clusters acquire greater visibility in representing their common interests. The public is by now familiar with terms like V4, Nordics, Eurocore and Club Med, all varyingly informal entities that represent geographical and cultural clusters of member States at a EU level. Conversely, in a European Federation, the federal level would represent the overall coordinator of this multi-level system, with specifically defined competencies and rights.

What we are not seeing, however, is the demise of the nation State as a political actor. The nation State isn’t dead and isn’t going anywhere. This is a common trope amongst federalists, who have a rather black and white view of nationalism and either think that the nation State is a thing of the past or that we should actively get rid of it. In this context, they see the European Federation not as a polity in which regions, States and clusters complement each other, but one in which the nation-State is dismantled.

The first thing to note, however, is that there is no empirical support for the idea that nation-States are dead. The United States, while internally federated, are for all intents and purposes a nation-State, with a common, homogeneous baseline. Russia, while internally diverse on a scope that is often underestimated, also places great stock on national elements. Japan is a nation State. China might well be a peculiar case but it is hardly an example of a federal, post-national polity. In fact, as noted by Norberto Bobbio, Nicola Matteucci and Gianfranco Pasquino in their Dictionary of Politics, nation-States are effectively the sole baseline framework that is capable of producing workable polities today – even when those later on evolve into multinational States and possibly federations.

The problem, then, doesn’t lie with nation-States in and of themselves: it lies specifically with European countries, whose size and internal markets would be too small for the challenges of the near future. As a consequence, European nation-States can keep their sovereignty only if they pool it into something common, a “pool it or lose it” scenario. This is the single underpinning strategic imperative behind European unity.

Impractical Subdivisions

With this said, one could argue that we should actively work to bring about the demise of the nation-State. This position stems from the reductive association of the European nation-State with the World Wars – and ignores the foundations upon which States in the modern sense – and supranational organizations like the EU itself – are founded. More dangerously, it severely underestimates the importance played by member States in the lives and perceptions of Europeans, thereby widening the gap between European federalism and the electorate. Member States are still the most relevant political environment for the majority of Europeans, and winning them over requires respecting this reality.

There is a further problem in that most proposed splits make no sense at all. Some federalists build their hypothetical Europe of Regions around culture and language or past history. This regionalism ends up looking suspiciously like ethno-nationalism. Federalist support for an independent Catalonia is a case in point: defending Catalan independence from Spain on the basis of diversity of language, history and culture means essentially promoting the creation of a new nation State. This is something which is completely at odds with the nominal federalist intent of overcoming said barriers.

On the other hand, if the suggestive division is purely administrative and based in efficiency of governance, then why change subdivision at all? Member States are already efficient, and even if we ignore the time, effort, and administrative chaos that would derive out of a radical reshaping of European borders and competencies, the fact remains that a geographically and economically heterogeneous unit like this map’s “Adriatica” – which includes diverse places such as Ljubljiana and Bari – is unlikely to offer significant administrative benefits compared to the continued existence of Italy and Slovenia as European member States.

The danger of keeping our heads in the clouds

Ultimately, this entire row about destroying nation-States is a symptom of a wider federalist problem, which is detachment from political reality. Not only is it detrimental to suggest outlandish and impractical vanity projects rather than popularizing the great successes and opportunities offered by the European Union, it also shows a fundamental lack of understanding of European politics. The proposed internal set up of any federal European polity shouldn’t be based in fancy daydreaming: it has to reflect the specific problems and peculiarities that make up European history and political culture.

To give but one example, simply consider the implications of such an internal rearrangement of State borders: it would imply that the federal government of this hypothetical European Federation has the power to alter the borders of member States, and indeed dissolve them at will. Not even in the United States can the federal government act in this fashion over its constituent units, and even regional, non-federal States like Italy place popular referenda as a prerequisite for the alteration of internal borders. A European government with such extensive power over its constituent units could hardly be qualified as a federation anymore: it would effectively act and behave as a unitary State, something that defeats the purposes, and nullifies the very strength of European federalism.

Did you enjoy this article? You may also like: United, but How? National vs Multinational Federations or Gold-plating: how EU States over-regulate themselves and then blame Brussels

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How are federations classified?

While some authors (Burgess, 2006) consider federations as a single category, others (Fabbrini 2015) divide federations into two distinct sub-categories, i.e. federal unions and federal States. Federal unions derive from a process of integration (or centralisation, King 1982) amongst constituent units, while federal States come from a process of disintegration within previously centralised states (or decentralisation, King 1982). A third category of scholars (Law, 2013) consider federal unions as not being a subcategory of federations, but an intermediate step between confederations and federations.

Federations boast a variety of different features, depending from different geographic, historical, economic and cultural developments (Friedrich 1969, Burgess 2006). One of the greatest distinctions that we can draw is that between national (or rather, mono-national) federations and multinational federations (Elazar 1987, Watts 2007, Kymlicka 1995).

Kymlicka (1995:10-16) is one scholar who gave a comprehensive definition of those terms. By applying them (Watts, 2007), multinational federations are all those containing more than one single national group, where each group sees itself as separate. Therefore, each one demands various forms of autonomy or self-government, in order to survive as a distinct society, boasting a different culture, language, traditions and institutions.

National federations, on the other hand, contain only one single national group and therefore their territorial constituent units do not follow linguistic or cultural boundaries. Empirically however, national federations have often contained multiple ethnicities themselves. Multiethnic/polyethnic States are those containing distinct cultural groups that do not wish to be recognised as a separate community. Typically, these cultural groups try to make mainstream society more accommodating towards their cultural diversity, while on the other hand accepting to be assimilated to the mainstream cultural group.

Accordingly, Germany, Austria, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, the USA are considered national federations. This is because there is a mainstream, majority cultural group, which has assimilated (or is assimilating) culturally diverse groups. The latter have nevertheless influenced the history, political environment and overall culture of their countries. Differently, countries like Switzerland, Belgium, Bosnia Herzegovina, Ethiopia, Canada, India and Russia are classed as multinational federations, since they recognise linguistic divisions and cultural identities as part of their constitutional framework.

Multinational federations display a higher degree of autonomy than national federations, since, in addition to the core areas of federal self-rule, like policing and tax collection, the constituent units have constitutional tools to preserve their cultural and linguistic identity. In terms of constitutional provisions, this could develop into exclusive competences in the area of schooling and higher education, promotion of linguistic diversity, promotion of the mother tongue abroad, but also, for instance, in policies for integrating migrants into society. Multinational States can hardly be centralised, since the demand for self-rule matches the demand of self-determination by subnational groups.

Conversely, national federations display a higher degree of centralisation than multinational federations. This occurs because the lack of cultural boundaries among internal groups tends to inhibit struggle for autonomy and independence compared multinational models. In a calculation of the degree of centralisation that Requejo made in a publication (2015: 157-176), in a 20-points degree scale, multinational federations displayed on average 15 points, while national federations only 9.625.

For instance, Austria represents a model of a national federation with a very high degree of centralisation. Because of its limited size, the high degree of cultural and linguistic uniformity, and the de facto limited powers of its states, Austria might represent a case of a de facto unitary state (Erk, 2004. Huegelin & Fenna 2006). In fact, despite having a federal constitution, local constitutions just mirror the national one, the party system follows mostly national lines, and the federal Upper House has a limited role in the policy-making process. It appears that Austria, despite being constitutionally a federal country, has a lower degree of decentralisation compared to, for example, a non-federal, but regionalised state like Spain.

What makes a federation united?

The success or failure of a federation depends on different factors. The will of an absolute majority (or at least a strong, consistently powerful, and organised relative majority) is important in determining the survival or the collapse of a federal system. Similarly, common interests and cultural and economic similarities might play a meaningful role in determining whether a federation will thrive. More generally, there should be a common ground that, for pragmatic or ideal reasons, fosters the desire for unity.

When a common national background is missing, other elements might play a significant role. Michael Burgess in his 2012 publication, In Search of the Federal Spirit, made a list of different values and principles that make the existence and the success of a federation possible. It is a moral dimension, encompassing human dignity, liberty, equality, justice, empathy, tolerance, recognition and respect.

From a constitutional point of view, this translate into autonomy, partnership, self-determination, comity, loyalty, unity in diversity, entrenchment and mutuality. This is why multinational federations, as well as mono-national federations, can survive thanks to a form of “civic (or liberal) nationalism”. Under such a model, national features are not shaped by ethnic or cultural elements, but by the rational adoption of a set of civic (or liberal) values on a voluntary basis. Attachment to a set of constitutional values that shape the character of its citizenship – i.e. constitutional patriotism – is also a factor that allows federations to thrive.

Success and survival of a multinational society is therefore down to the prevalence of a federal spirit, that can integrate and combine different national experiences. Should the EU ever become a federation, its success would depend on the ability to combine the principle of “unity in diversity” with some of the traditional characters of sovereign statehood.

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Both models are Federal Political Systems, i.e. systems consisting of two or more level of governments. Federal systems combine self-rule of the constituent units with shared rule through a common government and a common institutional framework. However, they differ in some key areas.

A Useful Model

Forsyth (1981), King (1982), Elazar (1987), and Watts (2007) gave the following definition of confederation: a Federal Political System, in which the confederal government is no more no less than an agent of its members. In a confederation, the key features of sovereignty, those traditionally linked to the concept of statehood, are exerted by the constituent States, while the confederal authority has a very limited sovereignty, a very limited or indirect democratic legitimacy, and its fiscal revenues, defense and foreign policy essentially rely on its Member States.

Unlike the former, federations are compound polities (Watts, 2007: 10) based on strong constituent units and a strong central government, in which each level of governments has its own democratic legitimacy, its own fiscal resources, and its own legislative and administrative powers. In these systems the traditional features of the State like defense, monetary policy and foreign policy are usually performed by the federal level.

As with all models, the federalism/confederalism dichotomy is a simplification, useful for categorizing the two phenomena but not entirely precise. Reality is more complex and in some instances, federal and confederal elements coexist or have coexisted, especially in the looser models of federation.

Early Federalism

European history is full of experiences of “confederal” unions. The most important case is that of the old, pre-Napoleonic Swiss Confederation, but that was not the only one: the Dutch Republic was another meaningful example of confederation. It is perhaps possible to compare other medieval leagues to these political systems: however, all these cases are very far from the current concept and theory of statehood.

In fact, both Switzerland and the Netherlands were forms of permanent or semi-permanent military alliances, where the constituent units had the possibility to discuss and settle their disputes thanks to some common institutions. However, since the end of the 18^th Century, with the development of the current concept of statehood in the Americas and in Europe, the very ideas of federation and confederation started changing dramatically.

Still at the end of the 19^th century, for some authors (Sigdwick 1903) federalism was just a term to describe those forms of governments and polities that were not unitary states: so that the dichotomy was essentially between unitary state on one hand and federal polity on the other. However, the main difference between the term confederal and federal emerged with the debate between Federalists and Antifederalists in the early years of the USA and the adoption of the US Constitution.

Federalism and Confederalism in the United States

The first form of constitutional document binding the Thirteen Colonies together was called “The Articles of Confederation”, which was no more and no less than an intergovernmental treaty, since the Articles of Confederation was mostly a military alliance, with very loose common institutions. Unlike the “Articles of Confederation”, the US constitution had the purpose to create a state founded on the principles of federalism.

The debate on the new constitution put Hamilton, Madison and Jay, the three traditional supporters of the new federal model, against a long series of critics, later dubbed “the Antifederalists”, who rejected the new federalist proposal and who advocated a different arrangement for the United States and in some cases, they saw the “Articles of Confederation” as a preferable arrangement.

Although now these interventions are now known as the “Antifederalist Papers” in opposition to the Federalist Papers, at the time the authors did not claim to be anti-federalists, on the contrary they accused Hamilton and Madison to support the creation of a national State, while they claimed to defend federalism. So, essentially an argument between federalists supporting two different forms of federal political systems (Burgess, 2006). One was looser, with States as sovereign actors, and the other was an enhanced system in which the federal government and the State governments had different areas of sovereignty. Basically, one was a confederal model, the other a federal polity.

This dichotomy eventually exploded with the American Civil War, when the breakaway states of the South decided to form the “Confederate States of America” adopting a looser form of federalism, in which the rights of the states prevailed and in which the confederate government was much more limited in its competencies. With the Civil War, American political literature first developed the idea that federalism and confederalism were different ideologies, advocating for different polities.

Subsequent Developments

Conclusions were openly stated only after the Civil War. In fact, when declaring their secession, the Southern States claimed that the federal constitution was no more no less than an international agreement. In so doing, they asserted that they had the right to leave the United States just like any European power could abandon or reject an alliance. In the same years in Europe, the Swiss confederation was facing the same struggle. While the Catholic, traditionalist Cantons were looking forward to return to the old pre-Napoleonic confederal model, the protestant and urban cantons advocated the adoption of a form of federalism that combined the Swiss tradition of federalism with the new forms of statehood. Most scholars agree that, from 1848 onwards, Switzerland is to be considered a federation in all but in its official name.

Currently, there are 27 states that completely or mostly match the definition of federation. The United Arab Emirates, on the other hand, are the closest match to definitions of confederalism. In fact, the UAE is a union of monarchies, in which the main constitutional features are exercised by the seven Emirs, and more importantly by the two primary ones: the Eemir of Abu Dhabi, who serves as federal president, and the Emir of Dubai, who servers as Prime Minister. The emirs gather in the Supreme Federal Council, the highest legislative and executive body of the country. The emirs also directly appoint a half of the Federal National Council, the legislative body of the UAE.

Most scholars are still arguing about the nature of the EU. To some extent, many of its key features match the definition of confederalism: the Council appoints the head of the Commission, the budget is very limited and based on Member State contributions, and more generally, Member States are masters of the treaties. However, it is possible to point out that in some areas, the European Union has developed and is developing some features that are already very close to that of a state, i.e. a federation.

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Someone was a federalist because their grandfather, uncle, and father were. The mother as well.

Someone was a federalist because they saw Spinelli as a promise, Albertini as poetry, federalism as heaven on Earth.

Someone was a federalist because they felt lonely.

Someone was a federalist because they received too nationalist an education. Ouch.

Someone was a federalist because Schuman required it, De Gasperi required it, Monnet required it, and Adenauer as well, everyone required it. Someone was a federalist because they got told to be so.

Someone was a federalist because they didn’t tell him everything.

Someone was a federalist because they used to be a Christian democrat.

Someone was a federalist because they understood that the European union went slow, but steady.

Someone was a federalist because Albertini was a good man.

Someone was federalist because Salvini was not a good man.

Someone was a federalist because they were rich, but loved the people.

Someone was a federalist because they drunk wine and got emotional after the Federal Committees.

Someone was a federalist because they were so atheist they needed another God.

Someone was a federalist because they were so fascinated by populists that they wanted to be one of them.

Someone was a federalist because they’d had enough about demagogy. Someone was federalist because they hoped for a salary.

Someone was a federalist because the Federation… not today. Tomorrow, maybe. But the day after, most certainly.

Someone was a federalist because of the crisis of the nation-state, the ideology, random stuff like the inclined plane.

Someone was a federalist because they wanted to piss off their father.

Someone was a federalist because they only read European Federalists press release.

Someone was a federalist for fashion, someone on principle, someone out of frustration.

Someone was a federalist because they wanted to federate everything. Shit.

Someone was a federalist because they had no experience of all the debates in the Central Committee, the National Board meetings, the Secretariat and other similar organs.

Someone was a federalist because they’d mistaken federalism for the Albertini’s gospel.

Someone was a federalist because they were convinced they had the European people behind him/her. Oh shit!

Someone was a federalist because they were more federalist than the others.

Someone was a federalist because of the great European Federalist Movement.

Someone was a federalist in spite of the great European Federalist Movement.

Someone was a federalist because there was nothing better.

Someone was a federalist because we suffered the worst populist movements in Europe.

Someone was a federalist because worse than us fares only Uganda.

Someone was a federalist because they’d had enough of seventy years of incompetent and corrupted national governments.

Someone was a federalist because of Donald Trump, thirty thousands of deaths in the Mediterranean, the neo-Fascists, the end of the welfare State etc etc.

Someone was a federalist because who was *against* had to be a federalist.

Someone was a federalist because they couldn’t stand that dirty thing we insist calling intergovernmentalism.

Someone believed they were federalists, and maybe they were something else.

Someone was a federalist because they dreamed of a freedom different from the American one.

Someone was a federalist because they believed they could feel alive and happy, only with other Europeans.

Someone was a federalist because they needed a push towards something new. Because they felt the necessity of a different morality. Because maybe it was just a force, a flight, a dream, it was just an impulse, a desire to change things, to change life.

Yes, someone was a federalist because with this impulse, everyone was something more than themselves. Being like two persons in one. On one side the personal daily trouble and on the other, the sense of belonging to a people, who wanted to take flight, to really change life. No, no regrets. Many still spread their wings, although not yet capable of flight. Like hypothetical seagulls.

And now? Now, it feels like we are two persons. On one side the responsible adult who goes through the grind of daily survival and on the other, the seagull, from whom the pure dream of flight has been stolen. Two miseries in one body.

External contribution by Giulio Saputo, former Secretary of “Gioventù Federalista Europea – Italy“

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As the Sudeten crisis brewed, Derek Rawnsley and Charles Kimber – colleagues and fellow students – decided to speak out against the state of anarchy of the international system. According to them, this left unpunished the criminal actions taken out by the authoritarian regimes. The object of the critique was the League of Nations. Already in the Twenties, men like Kurt Tucholsky and Richard Von Coudenhove-Kalergi had argued how the anomalous structure of the League paralyzed it.

The setting up of the League of Nations followed Wilson’s famous Fourteen Points declaration in 1918. Here, the idealist American President outlined a new order based on the principles of peace and liberty supervised by an international organization

The experiment ultimately failed, as the League lacked of its own armed forces. No country was willing to give up its sovereignty to defend collective security. Moreover, also due to the neo-isolationist wave that took on the country, the United States never became a member.

No military intervention was forthcoming to stop the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. When Fascist Italy declared war on Ethiopia (itself a member of the League) and unleashed chemical weapons against the population, only ineffective economic sanctions followed. The impunity of these two regimes, as Hitler himself claimed, assured Germany that it would not have found any obstacle on its way for Lebensraum.

According to federalists and radical internationalists, the League was clearly not enough. The world needed a democratic supranational government that could preserve peace and face the belligerence of nation-states.

A New Constitutional Project

Rawnsley and Kimber got to know Patrick Ransome, a journalist with a degree in international law, and invited him to join the adventure. The three began distributing pamphlets explaining the goal of the organisation: a democratic European federal union. Soon, hundreds of people showed their interest in Federal Union. At its peak, the organization could count on 200 branches and thousands of members.

A Panel of Advisers was formed, consisting of academics and political figures. Two of them were Lord Lothian, secretary of the UK Prime Minister at the Versailles Peace Conference, and Lionel Curtis, founder of the Royal Institute for International Affairs. These two were already active in the federalist landscape with several articles to their name. They were engaged in spreading the ideas contained in Union Now. This publication by New York Times journalist Clarence Streit called for a federal union between the United States, Ireland, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Federal Union kept growing and the founders decided to split it into different departments. Amongst these, a Research Institute, a Public Relations Department and a Central Office. Inspired by the Federal Convention of Philadelphia – which gave the USA its current federal structure – the organization drafted a federal constitution. The idea was to submit the document to all democratic countries that, if willing, would have called for a referendum on it. In case of a positive outcome, the Federal Union would have asked one of these countries to host an Institutional Conference to establish the definitive Constitution of the future federation together with the other agreeing states.

The Death of Federal Union

The constitutional project had little success. Ultimately, the organization became less and less important due to internal fights and diverging ideas. Additionally, they faced a lack of support from politicians and institutions both in Britain and abroad. What would prove to do its undoing, though, was the inability to find a compromise between Europeanists and Atlanticists.

In their enthusiastic support for unity, the British federalists somehow anticipated the mainland’s movement Paneuropean Union. However, the latter was more elitist and driven by a general sense of confederal unity rather than a federalist one.

This story sends an important message to the British people on the first anniversary of the Brexit referendum:. Don’t give up, there will always be a place for Britain in Europe. The Federal Union still exists today, you can visit its website here.

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Many participated in this endeavour: some of them were ordinary people, others great statesmen. We cannot commemorate them all at once – we have chosen the most impactful stories, to give you a glimpse into a Europe that never was, and better celebrate the Europe we do have today.

I – Federalists Between The Wars

Not all soldiers and civilians, whose lives the World War One claimed, nurtured hatred and contempt toward their enemies. The famous Christmas Truce in 1914 (or even earlier examples, like the exchange of food and drink between the German and French soldiers during the Franco-Prussian War) gives us a glimpse of the many stories of friendship and the subsequent more serious efforts to achieve peace, which in many cases were wiped out by the winds of war that shook the “short twentieth century”.

In spite of nationalist attempts to suppress them, some of these stories invariably came to light. The interwar period was prolific for the many early pacifists who survived to the first conflict and made sure that their voices were heard throughout the continent while the disastrous effects of the war were still evident and tangible. Among these voices, some rose in favour of European peace and unity.

We should remember the efforts of Robert Peereboom, Dutch activist for world peace whose work focused on European citizenship. Or his fellow national J.H. Schultz van Haegen, who wanted a future European Federation to adopt the same institutional framework of the United States, and formulated his ideas in a pamphlet titled “Who wants peace should further the establishment of the United States of Europa”. Meanwhile in Germany, one such intellectual was dealing with the nationalist impulses of the military by promoting his pacifist ideals.

Kurt Tucholsky

The German journalist, satirist and writer Kurt Tucholsky was lucky enough to survive his military service during the First World War. A leftist and a staunch pacifist, he was among the most prominent intellectuals of the Weimar Republic. He paid dearly for his ideas and influence when the fledgling Nazi government burned his books and banned him from the country.

Tucholsky is unknown to most Europeanists, but he can be easily considered one of the pioneers of European federalism. In many of his articles, he advocated the establishment of the United States of Europe to avoid another full-scale war among European nations and criticized the postwar treaties that led to the formation of many new states and thus new armies, making another war more likely to happen.

His words regarding the Treaty of Versailles, which settled Germany’s price to pay after the war, sound prophetic:

“…The imperialists,
Nesting among the French,
Will give us our nationalists again,
And in another twenty years
New cannons will come…”

The multiplication of new – and often small – states and respective frontiers, Tucholsky argued, would make borders appear as the main dividing line between humans, diverting the attention from social problems like the exploitation of the oppressed, which was a common aspect that affected every European nation.

The absolute sovereignty of states in their “internal affairs” was also rejected by Tucholsky, who came to embrace the newly established League of Nations and its potential as a supranational entity that could prevent future conflicts, but he dismissed its (then)current intergovernmental framework, which allowed every member state to renounce its authority, as the axis powers did in the wake of the Second World War.

Tucholsky’s commitment to a united Europe is uncontested, but contrarily to figures like van Haegen, his actions to achieve an actual federation never went beyond the written words of his articles. He dedicated himself mainly to journalism and pacifism, by warning his fellow citizens of the danger that nationalists and monarchists posed to the Weimar Republic, and by being active in several pacifist associations, like the Ex-Servicemen’s Association for Peace which he helped founding.

With the Nazi Party grasping for power, he was forced to move to Sweden, as some of his colleagues were already beginning to be censored and imprisoned. Tucholsky didn’t see his dream come true, but his story is extremely valuable to us Europeans living in current times: it reminds us that peace is one of the main purposes of a united Europe.

Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi

While Tucholsky was engaged in promoting internationalism and pacifism, questioning the usefulness of a weak League of Nations and championing European unity, another key figure emerged over the interwar years: Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi.

Son of an Austro-Hungarian diplomat and an aristocratic woman from Tokyo, he is rightfully considered the father of European integration. He was more active than Tucholsky in the political scene and kept in touch with many important political figures of his time.

The first attempt to bring his idea of unity to the attention of the European political leaders started with the Czech President Tomás Masaryk, who around 1920 was contemplating the establishment of a confederation of central European countries. Due to the president’s scepticism and old age, Kalergi’s attempts to influence Masaryk unfortunately failed.

Kalergi turned his attention to the French and German foreign ministers Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann, with effects of surprising magnitude, which are discussed below. His dedication to the cause led him in 1922 to co-found, with Otto Von Habsburg, the Paneuropean Union, the first European movement whose stated aim was to unite the continent. The PEU survives to this day, although nowadays it is mostly dormant.

We know that the Count of Coudenhove-Kalergi and Tucholsky knew each other, but they never worked together to further their common agenda. The German journalist attended a talk given by Kalergi in Paris in 1925, but he didn’t seem very enthusiastic about his Paneuropean project and was sceptical of Aristide Briand, whom Kalergi was working with.

Inspired by the book “The economic consequences of peace” (1919) by the British economist John Maynard Keynes, Kalergi advanced the idea of an independent international judicial body, a common market and a single currency, thus anticipating what would have been the European Economic Community (EEC) and the more recent European Monetary Union (EMU). He collected his ideas in a manifesto entitled Pan-Europa, published in 1923 and translated into dozens of languages.

His membership in the Austrian masonic lodge Humanitas and his positive view of a multicultural society gave rise to numerous conspiracy theories among the far right, which still today accuses Kalergi of being the mastermind of a supposed “ethnic cleansing” that the European Union is secretly carrying out against European natives.

Kalergi didn’t succeed in his project, but he should be remembered for having dedicated his life to a noble cause and having inspired thousands of people. His Pan-European Movement gained the interest of great minds like Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann and Keynes himself. Maybe what is more tangible of Kalergi’s legacy is the adoption of the Ode to Joy as the hymn of the European Union, as he proposed in 1955.

II – The Briand Plan

The war has taught us one thing, namely, that a common fate binds us together. If we go under, we go under together. If we wish to recover, we cannot do so in conflict with each other, but only by working together.
– Gustav Stresemann, 1925

Kalergi began looking for institutional figures who would support his plans, and found many – but he intersected with two statesmen in particular. The first was Gustav Stresemann, Chancellor and then Foreign Minister of the German Reich between 1924 and 1929. The second and even more enthusiastic backer was Aristide Briand, who alternated between the role of Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of France during the 1920s.

While Briand took Kalergi’s ideas to heart and quickly began drafting plans of closer European cooperation and community, Stresemann remained more pragmatic and kept a keener eye on German national interests.

The political tensions and troubles of the coming years, as well as the need to renegotiate the merry-go-round of
loans and reparations between the United States, Germany, France and the UK, meant that Briand could only come forward with his plans in 1929. On July 31st, speaking to the French Parliament, he declared he’d been thinking of “this vast problem” for four years, and that Europe would either become a federal State or head towards social catastrophe.

He went further, saying he would propose to the League of Nations the establishment of a European Federation, because: “I am of the opinion that there should be a kind of federal bond between peoples who – as is the case in Europe – live geographically next to each other”.

Stresemann expressed his support, although he believed the primacy would rest on economic integration, and that a complete federation would be a matter for the future. To understand Stresemann’s position, however, we need to look deeper into the seams of European history at the time. In 1923-1924 Germany had banked on American involvement to stabilize the German economy in the wake of hyperinflation, and keep France and Britain at bay in regards to reparations.

Germany’s greatest hope was that America would see the underpinning connection between German reparations, and French and British ability to pay their debts to the United States. This “Atlanticist” strategy was dealt a fatal blow when the Young Plan of 1928 didn’t include a comprehensive revision of the Versailles provisions or even a large-scale reduction in German reparations.

Within hours of securing the agreement of the German government to the Young Plan, Stresemann suffered a series of strokes and died, leaving us with the open question of what he might have achieved as the European and American economies uncoupled. But in the last week of June 1929, Stresemann had made his disappointment clear, telling the Reichstag that Europe was becoming “a colony of those who have been more fortunate than us”.

The time had come in which “French, German and perhaps also other European economies must find a way together to counter a competition that weighs heavily on us all.”

Stresemann’s death was a disaster for Germany, greatly contributing to the situation spiralling out of control, and the internationalist agenda in the country lost its more flamboyant proponent, paving the way for ultra-nationalist alternatives. The stock market crash that followed within the same month would make things even worse, paralysing the international market that had made Germany’s postwar recovery viable. But Briand forged on nonetheless.

One month prior to these events, in September 1929, the General Meeting of the League of Nations had tasked Briand with formulating a plan for European confederalism, to be submitted by 1931. He obliged, styling it as the Bond of Solidarity between the States of Europe. This plan became French policy on 1st May 1930, under a new title: Mémorandum sur l’organisation d’un régime d’union fédérale européenne. Twenty-six European governments were invited to respond, so that the memorandum could be discussed in September 1930, during the new yearly meeting of the General Assembly of the League of Nations.

While Briand used the term European Federation, his vision was closer to that of a confederation, or a regional forum, as a sub-unit of the League of Nations. On this model, member States would bring down trade barriers, come together in a spirit of “union, not unity” and harmonize their economies and trade with the aim of creating a continent-spanning single market. The Federation would have its own European Conference devoted to the States, a political committee modelled after the LoN sub-committees, and a General Secretary.

The memorandum received positive reactions from many European nations, including those who considered helping from the sidelines, like the British Empire. Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Balkans, as well as Belgium, were particularly positive about the idea, and the implications it had – preventing future German expansionism in Eastern Europe. Remarkably, Greece asked for Turkey to be included in the talks.

Briand’s plan was discussed at the League of Nations that year. In the post-Black Monday political climate, and with Germany and Austria holding secret reunification talks, the mood had darkened considerably. The invited nations didn’t want to commit in excess of testing the waters, but they did agree to form a Commission of Enquiry for European Union, with the active participation of Germany, France, the British Empire, Finland, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Yugoslavia.

This Commission was to lay the groundwork for an economic non-aggression pact, and an economic solidarity pact, which would begin the process of European federalization. The Commission remained in operation until March 1932, when Briand died, after which it was put on hold. What happened soon after, as the result of a heated German election, changed everything.

III – The Europe That Never Was

It’s hard to predict what this European (Con)Federation might have looked, had it been brought to the fore. What is almost certain is that it would have remained a primarily economic endeavour for quite some time. Member States were to maintain sovereignty and they held such a wide variety of governments, ranging from liberal democracy to fascist dictatorship, that it is hard to see a normative process taking root early.

Ethnic diversity was far greater as well. Diversity remains a key core of Europe even today, but it should not be forgotten that the peace deals that followed World War Two gave us much more homogenous borders and countries. Resolving friction in the many areas of astounding richness and diversity of interwar Europe was possible, but it would have required considerable political will.

The strategic underpinning that appealed to European statesmen was that it would allow Europe to stem the economic ascendance of the flanking powers – the USSR, the United States, and Japan – whose hand had been considerably strengthened after the war. The proposed members made up an area whose GDP was greater than that of the United States, with considerable military might at their disposal; the exploitation of colonies, and their natives and raw resources, was openly acknowledged as one of the strengths of this union.

This leads to a Europe that looks much different from the one we have today. While the proposal of a free trade agreement with the USSR suggests the aim of peaceful coexistence, if such a Federation managed to remain united, it would still be pretty far from the normative giant of human rights and rule of law that the European Union is to this day, and it’s likely that colonialism would be viewed much differently.

There are, however, lessons to be learned from this endeavour, and the consequences of its failure. Stresemann had gambled. His gamble was that Germany was so fundamental to the wider economy of Europe that it was impossible to curtail it in eternity without also doing great damage to Europe. This was the same logic that allowed West Germany to reconstruct and become one of the primary nations of the world after 1945, which is bitterly ironic. As in 1929, it was the French that came forward with their proposals for European economic and defence integrations, after the war.

To cap it off, Stresemann was only two years older than Konrad Adenauer, the Chancellor of the Federal Republic between 1949 and 1963. Adenauer followed a recipe similar to that of Stresemann, making the rump of his country a fundamental part of the European Community and NATO.

Ultimately, the key issues that motivated Briand, Stresemann, Tucholsky and Kalergi are the same we face today: European countries alone can no longer be relevant in the emerging international environment. Staying together is our only way to remain capable of influencing our own fate. It took another terrible war for Europe to learn this lesson, at great human and material cost. It meant renouncing our role in the world at large, which had its positive side – for example, it meant abandoning colonialism and championing the far more progressive cause of human rights.

9th of May is Europe Day. The story of the Europe That Never Was should serve as a cautionary tale of what we stand to lose – but also a story of what we stand to gain, and why we should make sure that the Union we do have, can prosper and grow stronger in the coming decades.

Written by Bruno Formicola and Tullio Pontecorvo.

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