“At times when Europe often seems to shift between integration and fragmentation, we need to come clear about our political plans, options and intentions,” said the President of the European Commission (EC) José Manuel Barroso during a debate organised by Think Tanks in Brussels on 22 April.
“Today's programme shows that this is much more than a semantic discussion: it is a fundamental choice we have to make if we want the European idea and the European values to succeed both within and beyond our borders,” continued Barroso pointing at federalism.
According to EC’ president there is a real risk of polarisation in Europe and fragmentation comes from not hearing citizens’ concerns. He added he was “deeply concerned about the divisions that we see emerging”, naming political extremes and populism; disunion emerging between the centre and the periphery of Europe; renewed demarcation line being drawn between the North and the South of Europe and re-emerging prejudices as examples.
Federalism, according to Barroso’s words, is “not a superstate (but) a democratic federation of nation states that can tackle our common problems, through the sharing of sovereignty in a way that each country and each citizen are better equipped to control their own destiny”.
Speaking of Europe's federalism, the EC’s president outlined that it is “all about clarifying the way ahead for Europe without denying the past and the present; about openly, realistically and democratically discussing the medium and long term.”
Nevertheless, the EC’s chief acknowledged that one of the reasons why the term “federalism” is so sensitive is the idea or the suspicion that countries would be overshadowed by a unified, centralised federal state.
He said that for European countries,” the thought of being a mere sub-federal entity is unbearable.” However, he further explained that the European Union as we know it today already has a number of undeniably federative elements, including a supranational European Commission with a mandate to promote the general European interest, a directly elected European Parliament, an independent European Central Bank and a European Court of Justice based on a system of law, the primacy of which is recognised over national law.
Barroso added that the problem is not “the political integration, the problem is to have an integrated single national unity at European level.”
