European Federation as a Systemic Response to the Crisis of Leadership in Europe?

Abstract

The idea of European federation keeps recurring in politicians' and intellectuals' discourses on the future of the European Union. The logic of global rivalry of “large territories” favors this in particular, as it somehow forces Europe’s states to enter into a tighter integration if they want to realize their politics. The biggest challenge which the Union faces is the problem of leadership, understood both in the context of internal policy and relationally towards the surrounding. The problem, however, is the diversity of the member states and the unrelenting tension between particular concern about a national interest and European universalism. European federation sensu stricto, just because of this diversity has still been a utopian project. The future of the European Union most probably lies in a new intermediate model, as unique as the European Commonwealths used to be in the 1950s.