The Fate of Neo-Federalism in Western Europe

Abstract

HE POLITICAL METEOR that was federalism traced a dazzling trajectory across Europe's troubled firmament. Yet even at its spectacular zenith many continental observers appeared convinced that the meteor was destined to plummet earthward and burn itself out among the charred remains of other unrealized dreams for a better world. Would nationalism, vested interests, inertia, and, as in some cases, a fear of the unknown exert such gravitational pull that the ideal of federal union must perforce disappear beyond lost horizons? Would these elements sustain the rather gloomy estimates of European realists who insisted that federalism was a doomed cause? The zigzag course it has followed, the peculiar amalgam of strength and weakness it has displayed, and the erratic pace at which it has alternately spurted and limped towards its objectives render impossible a simple yes-or-no response. Indeed, the entirety of its brief history has been wrapped in paradox and dilemma. The paradox consists in the simple proposition that an ideal which appears logical, sound, and necessary writhes agonizingly at death's door at one moment and shows amazing vitality the next. The dilemma is born of an indecision whether to succor the unpredictable patient or to abandon it completely in the hope that a time more propitious for the conception of a new ideal is in the offing. The metaphors take on specific meaning when the evolution of postwar federalism is examined in detail.