Since its formation in 1993, the European Union (EU) has tried both to gain more power on the world stage and to move power from the 28 EU member-nations’ capitals to the city of Brussels, where the EU Parliament is. Some have had the vision to make the EU a union like the United States of America, whereas some have had the vision of a trade alliance that would decrease the amount of paperwork for shipping goods over the borders between the small Western European countries. Today, these two factions still exist, even though neither of their goals has been met after 23 years in action.The EU remains a loosely connected group of countries.
In reality, the EU is too diverse to be a union; without considering diplomatic relations in every move, cooperative bonds wouldn’t exist. The official motto of the EU, “Union in Diversity,” as well as the fact that the EU has 24 official languages, both evince that it is too diverse to become the second United States. Thus, America will never have to face the United States of Europe, which might be seen as a relief. The languages, cultures, and heritages of the people are simply too different, and the people of Europe themselves have fundamentally different natures; a central government where Scandinavian liberal and social-democratic ideas are met by British conservatives would never function, nor would one where Spanish statesmen argue against Finnish ones. Secondly, European values differ too much for people to support them collectively without distinguishing themselves as their own demonym and citizens of their own countries. In the United States, very few New Yorkers would say that people in Pennsylvania have such a different history and heritage that it clearly affects how native Pennsylvanians think and act in comparison to a New Yorker. Yet if one is to cross the border from France to Germany, they will very soon see, hear, feel, and taste the difference. Another language will be spoken, other food will be eaten, the people will have a different history behind themselves and the people will have fought in two different alliances through both World Wars.
All these diverse elements not only create different values among the people who actually would become the citizens of a prospective United States of Europe, but also cause distinctions on the floor in the European Parliament. The European Parliament creates several issues for government, one of them being underrepresentation. For example, many small sovereign nations that act well and are famous for the well-being of their citizens—such as Denmark, Sweden and Belgium—get too little representation in the European Parliament for it to be beneficial for such countries to vest power in it. The countries listed above get 13, 20, and 21 representatives, respectively, in the EU Parliament, whereas countries that are faring poorly but have a larger population—such as Romania, Poland, and Italy—get 32, 51, and 73 representatives, respectively. This leads to mistrust within parliament. Sweden, which has been led by governments pursuing high standards of living and low corruption, doesn’t want to have fewer representatives than Romania, which was admitted to the EU on disputed grounds and has an almost undemocratic government that handles some minorities so badly they chose to flee to other nations as beggars. This same principle applies to countries such as Denmark and Belgium as well. Neither would gain anything by entrusting power to the EU when that power would be better off in their own hands than in the Romanian government’s, as the Danish and Belgian governments clearly have worked and functioned better than the Romanian government has.
To compare all this to the United States would imply the conclusion that some U.S. states also are underrepresented. Delaware has only one representative in the House and two in the Senate, whereas California has 53 in the House and two in the Senate. In total, California is represented 1833 percent more than Delaware, yet Delaware is neither revolting nor complaining about its representation. Some would argue this silly, and in some sense it is. Delaware wouldn’t be able to exist as a sovereign nation, whereas California most likely would. A contrafactual study examining what would happen if the United States had become more like the EU would probably show Delaware either merging into another state or functioning as a weak state, but not become a nation like the many within the EU. This correlates to the contempt that many Americans have for the federal government in Washington, as very few Europeans entrust Brussels with anything that directly affects them. Spain, England, Sweden, Romania, and France all think differently about health care and Greece, Germany, Denmark, and Italy have different opinions about social security; thus, none of those countries would even consider allowing Brussels to take legislative or executive action in the aforementioned areas.
Yet some are quick to point out the many benefits the EU has provided for Europe, among them the introduction of the Euro as a universal currency. This is not quite true—the Eurozone ended up being a disaster simply because well-managed economies, such as those in Finland and Germany, were mixed in with poorly-managed economies, such as those of Italy and Greece, and the Euro is now seen as more of a mixed blessing. To manage an economy properly, the country’s legislative agenda and the nature of the people have to be taken into account when planning actions to stabilize it.
One example is if people have to pay for their children’s college tuition. In countries where people have to pay for college, such as England, the parents will save money for a long time and thus not spend it as it is obtained, which leads to less economic growth. In countries where people don’t have to pay tuition fees, such as Sweden and Germany, more money will be spent in the meantime and thus add to economic growth. Now, you cannot conclude from this that England has a poor economy and Germany a perfect one, but you can say that their different political views and agendas affect how their economies are handled. To manage a currency for several sovereign nations with entirely different governments and political agendas, the countries either have to adapt or live with a broken, poorly functioning currency. Some would argue that when the United States declared independence in the late 18th century, the states were in the same position as the member states in Europe today, a “fact” that is entirely false. It’s to be noted that many of the American states had different views, but they all had several things in common. They were all derived from the British crown, they all shared the same language, they had all taken similar paths through history, and they were all newly formed, weak and small “countries” that were incapable of fighting alone. Many of the European countries date back to the turn of the millennium and all of them have had rather remarkable histories since they were formed. The different peoples of Europe would simply not be able to identify themselves as Europeans instead of the nation from which they originate.
It is evident that the EU’s existence is a toll on some countries, such as Sweden and Germany, whereas other countries, such as Greece and Portugal, benefit enormously from it. The EU simply redistributes wealth without the important element that exists in welfare states: equality. To compare redistributing wealth as the EU does with how wealth is redistributed in a welfare state is extremely misguided, as a welfare state creates equality among the people whereas the EU doesn’t at all make different countries more equal; rather, it makes some countries more easily run than others. Neither the money Germany gave Greece nor the refugees taken by Sweden from Italy improve quality of life for citizens of other European countries. These things just make Italy easier to run without the 160,000 refugees taken by Sweden and keep Greece afloat with a loan to decrease the deficit from Germany. To conclude, the EU is currently two dozen countries that are only tied together in a union because of legally binding documents and a fear of more paperwork regarding customs and trading administration. The European Union is a union without unity.