May 15, 2000
Germany's Foreign Minister Urges European Federation
By ROGER COHEN
ERLIN, May 14 -- In a direct
challenge to nation states in Europe,
Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister, has proposed the creation of a European federation with a
directly elected president and parliament sharing real executive and legislative powers.
His appeal for the foundation of a
federation in which power would
shift from national governments to a
central European administration
comes at a time when the 15-member
European Union is pondering how to
manage its expansion. It is certain to
cause concern in states like Britain
that are wary of any dilution of their
sovereignty.
"A European federation means
nothing less than a European government and parliament that effectively
exercise legislative and executive
powers within the federation," Mr.
Fischer said in a speech at Berlin's
Humboldt University. The alternative in an enlarged European Union,
he suggested, would be paralysis.
Mr. Fischer said that he was expressing himself in a personal capacity and as a Green Party member of
the German Parliament, rather than
in his capacity as foreign minister.
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a Social Democrat, has never proposed a
European vision remotely as radical
as this.
The European Union now finds itself in an awkward half-way stage
where the introduction of a single
currency, the euro, has not been accompanied by any similar integration of its political institutions.
As a result, the fiscal policies that
back the shared currency may vary
from nation to nation, an evident
source of potential weakness to a
currency that has recently fallen
steeply against the dollar.
The union is also at a crossroads
with respect to its expansion. The
current institutions, whose apex is a
Council of Ministers from the 15
member states that meets periodically to make decisions generally
requiring unanimity, have already
become strained and ponderous.
With the proposed addition over the
next five years of several Central
European states, gridlock appears
likely.
"The answer is simple," Mr.
Fischer said on Friday. "The passage from an alliance of states to a
real parliamentarism within a European federation as Robert Schuman
suggested 50 years ago. I am aware
that the word federation is like waving a red rag to a bull for many in
Britain, but I know of no other word."
Since the foundation of the European Union, there has often been a
tension between those favoring a
United States of Europe that would
be a true federation and those more
inclined to see the union as a trade
and commercial alliance involving
intense cooperation, but not a radical
erosion of the European nation state.
The six founding members -- Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Italy -- have
been those most ready to work toward the vision of a United States of
Europe, while countries that joined
later -- like Britain and the Scandinavian states -- have been skeptical.
Mr. Fischer proposed the eventual
enactment of a constitutional treaty
that would set out which powers
were to be shifted to the new European executive and parliament, and
those that remained at national level.
At present, the European Parliament has limited powers.
As a first step toward this new
treaty, the 11 members of the European Union that already adhere to
the euro should move toward what he
called "a politico-economic union,"
through which issues like the environment, immigration, security and
foreign policy would be decided at a
European rather than national level.
These states, he said, should then
sign a first accord introducing "a
government that should speak with
the single voice of the union on the
greatest number of questions possible, a parliament and a directly
elected president." This would provide the "locomotive" for the formal
shift to a federation.
The German foreign minister said
he believed this process could be
completed within the next decade.
But first, it seems, Germany will
have to ease the fears of those states
that believe a federation would be
dominated by its most populous and
powerful state, the one with its capital in Berlin.
