Rethinking Europe: The Federalist Choice for a Continent in Crisis

The European Union has entered the second decade of the twenty-first century in bad shape. At the heart of its problems is an inadequately designed currency union, the weaknesses of which have been terribly exposed by the 2008 banking crisis and the current crisis of Eurozone debt.

But in reality this crisis, and the prescription of a big new leap into fiscal union, has exposed the greater crisis in Europe – that of political legitimacy. The challenge for the EU now is to overcome these problems in a way that helps resolve this ambiguity, not make the crisis of legitimacy worse.

Can Europe learn from America’s experience of continental federalism? Is Europe’s problem a democratic or delivery deficit at the level of its institutions, or is it a more profound issue of identity and solidarity? This selection of papers offer various views on the way forward for Europe out of the present financial and political turmoil - and the decisions that may come to define a generation of Europeans.

Contents

Foreword
Lord Mandelson

Introduction: When Democratic and Fiscal Deficits Combine
Jonathan Eyal

Future Constellations of Europe: Strategic Reflections
Werner Weidenfeld

The Democratic Inadequacies of the Proposed Fiscal Compact
Declan Ganley

Alexander Hamilton and the Debts that Helped Create the United States
Declan Ganley and Brendan Simms

Could America’s Founding Fathers Save Europe?
Joel Faulkner Rogers and Sean Kirwan

A Sceptical Perspective
Malcolm Rifkind

Europe’s Halfway House
Michael Stürmer