The United States of Europe. A future vision on the European Union

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Cultural Studies - European Studies, grade: 2,3, http://www.uni-jena.de/, course: BA.IWK.P2, 'Kulturspezifisches Wissen und Handeln Seminar Zielkultur' 'Perspectives on Europe'(146262), language: English, abstract: The European Union is faced with interlinked challenges these days, a financial and social crisis together with an economic and political crisis. Likewise, there is a revive of an authoritarian Russia, a return of the `German problem` in form of a European wide austerity policy, the rise of secessionist movements in Scotland, Catalonia, and other regions, a European refugee crisis, the growing of sceptical voices against the European Union all over Europe and the insecurity that comes with the `Brexit`. Thus, the question arises how to overcome the current weakness, this crisis of confidence within the European system. It is widely discussed how the future Europe will look like and what needs to change. It is beyond dispute that something needs to Changes in order to save the European community. The answer could be a loose confederation or a full political integration, a 'United States of Europe' with a centralized Power. In this paper, the federal model of the United States of Europe will be discussed, showing of the difficult situation in Europe nowadays and one out of many solutions for the European future. The idea of a federal Europe is not new and returned in the last few years and was widely discussed in politics, media and the public discussion. The further European integration should, referring to most spokesman, be done as a federal state following the model of the United States of America. It is a hypothetical model which cannot be implemented in short time and should be handled as a long-term project. Treaty changes, or even the approach of a constitution, are difficult and need to be well prepared in long political debates and votes. There are some main advocators of the model, especially in politics, to whom I will mainly refer to and create a comprising insight in this visionary concept. The current crisis reflects that something needs to be changed in the system to save Europe and not to lose all the things that have been achieved past years. The subject is not fully researched, reflecting the idea with different manifestations and variations. It is uncertain whether it will ever take place in Europe, and how exactly it would look like. For further european development the final goal of European Unification needs to be defined.