58% of French people in favor of a federal Europe in 2021

The APROFED association is coming back to you this week, following on from the IFOP survey published at the end of August, which announced that 71% of French people would be in favour of France becoming federal, in order to remind everyone that 58% of French people in 2021 were in favour of a federal Europe (see French women and men in favour of a federal Europe! – Union of European Federalists, UEF-France ).

While the association welcomes this news, it believes that it would be appropriate not to limit itself to the federal transition of only France but of the entire European Union as the founding fathers of the EU had imagined at the end of the Second ^World War in order to form what Winston Churchill and long before him Victor Hugo (see “One day will come…: The United States of Europe” ), Napoleon (see United States of Europe – Wikipedia ), and even Lenin (see The USSR and European unification – Persée ) had imagined, namely the United States of Europe .

Like the United States of America, these would also be made up of 50 states as shown in the map below, including the following countries:

Finland, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Liechtenstein, Belgium, Hungary, Cyprus, Iceland, Georgia, Armenia, Slovakia, Moldova, Luxembourg, San Marino, Vatican City, Malta, Kosovo, Andorra, Monaco, Turkey (without Kurdistan), Western Russia (up to the Urals) and with the 50th state, the capital of the EU, Brussels, which would have, like Washington DC, the status of an independent city.

The association notes that nearly ten territories within the EU are currently requesting, if not their autonomy, their independence, such as Corsica, Sardinia, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Scotland, Flanders, the Basque Country, Galicia, Catalonia, Wales, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, etc.

The association believes that for these regions, if their respective (unitary) states were to become federations, i.e. federated states of the EU, they would de facto recover, through the principle of subsidiarity, most of the powers they have claimed until now, thereby temporarily extinguishing the desire to become independent. If this desire were to persist, and in view of the right of peoples to self-determination, it would be appropriate for some states on the list cited above not to wish to join this project of a United States of Europe, thus leaving them the space to incorporate the 50 states of the EU. As a reminder, the EU is currently composed of 27 states.

The association thus sides with authors such as Charles Lemonnier, founder of the newspaper “Etats-Unis d’Europe” in the 19th century, and more recently with former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and Michel Dévoluy University, who are calling for the daring to finally include the United States of Europe in their respective works, which are now out of stock.

The association invites you to watch the following two very interesting YouTube videos on this subject :

Should the EU become a FEDERATION!? – YouTube

United Europe: Dream or Reality?

If the United States of Europe were to come into being, the association would also be in favour of a current reformulation of the European flag by adding to the centre of the circle of stars, a Pegasus, a winged horse from Greek mythology, embodying elevation, transcendence, inspiration, creativity, strength, power, whose shape is similar to that of the map above of the future United States of Europe.

The report from the Conference on the Future of Europe, held between 2021 and 2022, unfortunately does not direct the EU towards a federal state, even though some actors, notably the European Parliament and several founding states such as Germany, France, Italy, and the Benelux, see it as a step towards federal integration. It does indeed contain proposals that point towards deeper integration, such as:

– a strengthening of the role of the European Parliament,

– decisions by qualified majority in the Council on certain subjects (foreign policy, taxation), which would reduce the right of veto of Member States

– increased competences for the EU in areas such as health, environment, security and energy.

– a revision of the treaties : many proposals would require a modification of the current treaties (like Maastricht or Lisbon).

The 2021 report does not create a European federal state, but it does open the door to deeper integration that could, in the long term, bring the EU closer to a federal form if the member states so decide. The European Council did not initiate a treaty revision after the conference, slowing down any rapid transformation.

It would be appropriate for the association if the states that are already federal within the EU and those in favour of a federal Europe, such as the “group of the future” (see The European Union and Federalism – APROFED ), who would like to see the United States of Europe one day emerge, began the process of creating a powerful bloc that would encourage other countries to follow.

We wish you a good read and remind you that federalism is the only solution to reconcile unity in diversity.