Thread by @EmporersNewC

So you didn't know much about the EU then?

https://twitter.com/AlStewartOBE/status/1423746851023560709

The 'ever closer union' bit failed. The bit that people would have sense of shared purpose?

Why would anyone want that to fail? Unless they didn't know what ever closer union meant?

The aspiration for statehood?

Not even the most ardent federalists are calling for a state.

Not this guy. but we keep saying he does, because people just do not know any better in this country.

We keep saying to them "No, you want a country. You do...you definitely want a country!"

It's so rude.

Not Prodi.

Not Rompey.

Maybe legally improbable?

Yeah, but let's talk about it anyway.

When the first proposal for a federal state was raised it was not the only outcome.

People immediately rejected it.

In the European Council the French said they were dead against it, and the other countries said they understood people were against it, and that's not what they wanted either.

By 1973, the NYT is reporting the idea is dead.

(And Monnet's plan wasn't technically a state either)

There is a bit of a fright in the late 80s with a Delors plan, that leads some people in the UK government to believe that this might happen, but that is rejected.

Yes, Maastrcht saw the introduction of the first federal insitution, and there was some rationale to the idea that it was the start of a move to a federal state.

30 years have gone by, and they can't even agree on the community model for sanctions.

Helmut Kohl stopped talking about a federal state at the turn of the century.

So why haven't we?

The EU and the Common Market was created as a functional organisation, not a state in the making.

Part of the reason for that?

It was argued the UK wouldn't join if it wasn't.

There has been the introduction of federal process.

Who pushed for that?

The UK.

To reduce the centralism that would have been needed if we had stuck with pure functionalism.

It is getting close to 70 years since the founders agreed in the Council of Europe people didn't want a state.

It is 50 years since a president whose support for a federal state pushed them out.

It is over 20 years since we had a president that wanted a federal state.

VDL wanted one once, apparently, and had she still wanted one, there is every chance she wouldn't have got the job.

At least one presidents have been passed over before for this.

If people want to rag on the latest Spinelli proposals, things that are actually being argued for, then I'll join you.

Horrible, horrible stuff.

You want to talk about the EU and statehood then get in a time machine and go back 30 years where people were worred about the Fed under the bed.

Otherwise travel back to 1980 and find the Roy Jenkins explaining that any agreement could not be a state like the USA, because we were countries.

And then go back to 1900 to find them saying the same thing.

Some people in Europe understood this 121 years ago, why cant' the British understand it today?

/End