Europe of Regions?
I was reminded of an interesting European reality during my stay in Barcelona last week. Europe is not as homogenous as many people may think. Alone the European Union consists of 27 countries. Within these countries there are a lot of regions that have own cultural traditions and own languages. Spain for example consists of several regions with different languages the most predominant being the Basque region (in the north-west around Bilbao/San Sebastian reaching pretty far into French territory) and Catalonia (region around Barcelona). One of the major German newspapers titled an article in connection with the Spanish elections last week-end “State without Nation”. Both the Basque and the Catalan got some autonomy within Spain, they have powerful regional political parties that play a role in the government. Also they are important economical hubs on the Iberian peninsula.
The Young European Federalists promote the idea of a Europe of Regions, power for what makes sense at the lowest political level, also to solve for Nationality conflicts like the one of the Basque who are split to Spain and France. I copied this from their website:
This could make a lot of sense to reduce bureaucracy for the benefit of the people if the complexity at a European level would not increase. With 27 countries and their governments all having a voice to decide on political direction the EU is already far too complex and limits its global role. Complexity at that level definitely needs to be reduced rather than increased!
Posted at
10:50PM Mar 13, 2008
by Volker Seubert in Europe & Beyond |
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Comments[1]
Volker - you can't go round making common sense statements like this!
Just imagine what might happen if too many people across Europe came to the same conclusion?
The "Europe of Regions" geo-political concept has been around for a little while now but it has not really caught on with the public largely due to the determined efforts of those vested interests who have most to lose should it ever gain real momentum.
Those "vested interests" are of course the administrations (governments) of individual member states.
Despite 50 years of closer integration within Europe the EU (as currently constituted) remains an essentially intergovernmental construct; its institutional architecture dominated by member state interests - witness the hegemonic role played the European Council/Council of Ministers.
The worst offenders in this respect are the larger states so we are talking here about Germany, France, UK and to a lesser extent Spain, Italy, Sweden and Poland.
Should the notion you describe ever gain wider currency in mainstream public opinion Europe in 50-100 years might look a very different place!
Posted by Peter Davidson on July 09, 2008 at 11:08 AM CEST #