The Evolution of the European Union into a Full Supranational Federal State

The European Union (EU) is a unique economic and political partnership between 28 different countries. It consists of about half a billion citizens, and its combined economy represents about 20 percent of the world’s total economy (Briney, 2015). Today The European Union works as a single market, with free movement of people, goods and services from one country to another. There is a standard system of laws to be followed, and since 1999 many countries share a single currency called the Euro (Europa.eu, 2015). This essay will explore the background history of the European Union and the benefits and drawbacks of the European Union.

Since 1950 European Union (EU) was created it has promoted peace, prosperity and values among the member nations and its neighbouring countries. EU’s influential tools, has helped transform many European states into functioning democracies and prosperous countries. EU’s membership has grown from 6 to 28 countries (Enlargement, 2014), satisfying a historic vow to integrate the continent bringing in most states of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) by peaceful ideals.EU has anticipated the enlargement as an extraordinary opportunity to endorse political strength and economic success in Europe. EU’s extension policy is open to any European state that fulfils the EU’s political and financial criteria for membership; still the political process of inclusion of new state requires a unanimous agreement from all the existing 28 member states. Europe is considered to be more flourishing and safer place due to the promotion of democracy, anti-corruption policy and the single market policy.

From the mid 1920s onward there was talk of forming a formal European Union but rising nationalism and a world wide depression stopped any concrete advancement. The League of Nations had failed, economies had collapsed and radical right wing solutions seemed the only viable alternative after governments collapsed one after another. England remained in isolation, Germany was rearming and France was still in shock after horrible loses in WWI. After the inevitable WWII all was in ruin and the lesson finally struck home, No more! Peace and prosperity through unity and common understanding finally allowed the formation off the EEU. Europe could not survive as a polyglot of waring tribes. They need a counter balance to world domination by two superpowers

The EU was created in the midst of a war in attempts to unite Europe under a common government. After 43 years of rebuilding foreign affairs, have their attempts made a positive impact on the modern Europe? Many argue that the EU takes a toll on country's sovereignty. They lack in allowing countries to be apart of the union, without masking the unique culture and diversity of that country. Despite the advantages of being apart of the EU, the disadvantages highly outweigh them in the areas of economic, independence and cultural identity.

Part of the exceptional nature of the EU stems from the notion that nothing like it has ever been attempted successfully before. The European Union is an international institution with a single market and shared currency. It strives to maintain singular goals and make its way towards being an “ever closer union”. Today, the European Union has expanded to include twenty-eight member countries with an influence that reaches every continent. This institution has had an impressive history, but it has reached a point of concern. The golden years which held high hopes of a united supranational Union are long over. The EU faces destructive problems today, which could ultimately end their impressive era of cooperation. The Union has come

To some extent the EU has become a superstate due to federalist features that combine the member states of the European Union closer together. For Eurosceptic British who oppose the further integration between the states have defined the EU’s superstate to be a huge, centralized Brussels Bureaucracy limiting the sovereign authority of member states. This can be controversial as those in favour of the EU would prefer to grant some powers to a central body as they can achieve benefits in return for example the single market.

At the Laeken European Council of December 2001, government and state leaders of the European Union (EU) Member States decided to draft a `Constitutional Treaty' for the EU. The draft would then be discussed, amended, approved or rejected by an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) held in 2003. The aim of Fabbrini's article is thus to contribute to the understanding of the constitutional evolution of the EU through a comparison with the constitutional experience of the United States.

The roots of the European Union can be traced back to the early 1950’s when a small number of countries made a decision to join together as a way to resolve any potential conflict nurture economic growth and common values across the continent. There was a desire to promote common values and membership was opened to all European countries. Since the inception the number of members has grown from a founding six countries to what we now know as the modern day EU with a current total of 28 countries with a further 8 countries under application review. In 1992, what was then a group of twelve countries, joined together to form the Customs Community Code which was eventually introduced in January 1993. The code effectively merged the individual customs regulations in to a single customs union.

The Treaty of Maastricht marked a pivotal moment in European Unions formation for a few key reasons. It expanded and improved on ideas previously discussed in the Single European Act (1986). On a more important note, it established the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the European Monetary Union (EMU), which laid down the key foundations of the European Union, as well the Euro. The treaty also facilitated further developments such as the Treaty of Nice. The Single European Act (SEA)(1986) as well as the fall of the “Iron Curtain” made it easier to create the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. French

The Maastricht Treaty was a complex 1993 agreement that transformed the European Economic Community into the European Union so as to increase political and economic cooperation in Europe. Political objectives were given far greater consideration in the agreement than in any preceding agreement among the member states. Goals included improving the democratic legitimacy and efficacy of insitutions, furthering the economic and monetary union of states, and facilitating the development of a common foreign and security policy as well as broadening the social sphere of the existing European Community. The first pillar of the agreement established the European Community and Parliament,

A Steady Retreat from Democracy and a Growing Involvement in the European Union Heywood (2002) defines the ‘European idea’ as the belief that Europe ‘constitutes a single political community’ with shared objectives and difficulties despite its historical, linguistic and cultural differences. In the 20th century the European community essentially concerned itself with defence, peace keeping, and economic progress partly in response to the devastation caused by the Second World War. However, the European Union is increasingly focusing on more domestic issues such as civil rights within the EU, environmental issues and social policy. This expansion of the EU was symbolically displayed with the

As confirmed in the article United States of Europe ‘The European Union 's motto is "In varietate concordia", which is officially translated as "United in diversity" and this reflects how unique each state is that makes up Europe. Strong European integration in the future does have many positive aspects attached to it but would complete European integration ruin the sovereignty each country has built up over the years? From one end of Europe to the other there are vast differences in the ideologies, histories and cultures, religions and ethnics and

The purpose of the European Union (EU) was to bring European countries together to help ease both political and economic relationships in Europe. The formation of this group made up of a “family” of democratic European countries was created for the sole purpose of mutually beneficial economic and political peace which was exactly what was needed in the 1950’s. The EU is unique so unlike anything that has ever been, and the idea for it came to be while the world was still recovering from the catastrophic economic affects that were brought along by World War II which ended in 1945. Europe was drastically affected by the war having been caught in the middle, and since most of Europe was used as a battlefield a lot of it was left to nothing more than rubble.

Medrano (2012) argues that integration processes are difficult because of the diversity within the EU, the rise of Euroscepticism, and the shift in the balance of power of national institutions from domestic parliaments to a European parliament. Fligstein (2012) mentions that in 2004 only 3.9 per cent of people who lived in Europe viewed themselves as European, this is very damning in suggesting that the processes of EU integration have failed because no one identifies themselves as European. Raunio (2011) also echoes this sentiment; he comments that national governments are the gatekeepers of EU integration; however, the consistent enlargement of the EU has made this task more difficult, leading to the conclusion that integration has resulted in the loss of control that domestic governments have over their decisions

“Integration is a dynamic process, driven by a variety of forces and actors that, through their interactions, build and shape the institutional structure of the European Union.” This emergent political order was not an overnight, linear growth process but rather a “stop-go” system built on the steady development of a new political system with intergovernmental and supranational institutions and complex decision-making techniques. Fostered off the shared foundation for peace and unity, key integration players such as Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman were vital to the blueprints of integrative efforts with their respective contributions. While not perfect by nature, integration efforts have developed their individual advantages and