A constitution, a parliament with full legislative power, a unified legal system in key areas such as criminal law, federal political parties, a unified citizenship and a unified administrative system.
E.g. you would need to be subject to generally the same laws in France as you are in Italy, which are coming from one constitution that all lawmakers and courts need to uphold. When the passport you made in France need to be renewed you should be able to do that just as easily at any government office in Italy and during elections you should be able to vote the same parties that you were able to vote on before. And the people you elected need to be able to actually submit laws and the laws need to be able to pass purely in the parliament, without a veto and design power purely held by the government (comission).
I don’t know about the parties. We have parties you can only vote for in certain Bundesländer. Like the CSU. You can only vote for them if you live in Bavaria.
Or in Schleswig-Holstein there is the party for the Danish minority in Germany. Even in elections on a federal level
Not necessary for statehood – parliament is still the main legislative power, and requiring parliamentarians to draft laws has its own issues, you need tons of knowledgable staff to do it properly so it makes sense to centralise all the technocratic work. I agree though that staff should be split off from the commission into its independent thing, all three of parliament, commission, and council can then task it to come up with drafts regarding something.
a unified legal system in key areas such as criminal law
Not all federations have unified criminal law. In Germany it happens to be federal prerogative, but in e.g. the US every state has its own system.
a unified citizenship
We do have EU citizenship. Restrictions mostly apply to not being able to access other member’s welfare systems if you haven’t worked there for some time.
a unified administrative system.
Fuck no. Are you French or something where municipalities are run by Paris.
federal political parties
Already exist, though the large incumbents basically confederacies of parties… and newer, smaller, ones which started in a united Europe and developed their programme and identity in a pan-European context from the very beginning, like the Pirates and Volt, aren’t recognised because not enough seats, neither in the EP nor member state parliaments.
But that brings me to the one actually crucial point: We need a European political sphere. Bluntly said as long as elections on the EU level are a vehicle to tell national parties whether they fucked up we’re not there, yet, we’re not one voting public but 27.
If ther parliament has no initiative right for legislation, there is no directly democratically legitimized legislative body. And the EU comission is way to indirect to be considered properly legitimized.
That the US is lackluster in its criminal system should not be an acceptable example for us.
While your citizenship extends to allowing you freedom in other EU countries there is still plenty differences outside the EU. But you wouldnt find it that inside a nation state people from one federal state can travel under different rules than people from another federal state. They are all subject to the same rules and that needs to be the case for the EU too, to achieve statehood.
With the unified administrative system it is not about control from one place. It is about uniform standards and uniform interactions. For instance getting married requires different papers and prerequisites depending on country. Things that are a complicated act with multiple personal appointments in Germany can be done in 5 minutes digitally in other countries. This is unacceptable for a nation state.
we do not really have eu wide political parties yet. there is alliances, but those are different and people can only vote the local part of the EU election. There is no EU wide electable lists and worst of all there is different rules to the countries EU elections. Something again impossible in a true collective nation state as elections need to be equal.
So we are still a long way from having the EU works as one nation state.
If ther parliament has no initiative right for legislation, there is no directly democratically legitimized legislative body. And the EU comission is way to indirect to be considered properly legitimized.
The parliament can order the comission to draft a law regarding a certain area, and then amend it to their heart’s content. It’s indirect, yes, but as said I think keeping the external drafters is actually a good idea. EU law is complex.
That the US is lackluster in its criminal system should not be an acceptable example for us.
The issue with the US is not structural, but that the enlightenment never arrived among the people there.
While your citizenship extends to allowing you freedom in other EU countries there is still plenty differences outside the EU. But you wouldnt find it that inside a nation state people from one federal state can travel under different rules than people from another federal state. They are all subject to the same rules and that needs to be the case for the EU too, to achieve statehood.
Well the EU is trying to make things like visa rules of other countries uniform for all EU citizens. Being a single state would certainly help with that but I don’t think it’s a prerequisite.
With the unified administrative system it is not about control from one place. It is about uniform standards and uniform interactions. For instance getting married requires different papers and prerequisites depending on country. Things that are a complicated act with multiple personal appointments in Germany can be done in 5 minutes digitally in other countries. This is unacceptable for a nation state.
It is the norm in Germany: Want to leave a public church? In one state you do that at the Standesamt, in another in the courthouse. Administration is state prerogative. Interoperability is a good thing but telling member states how to do their administration is a no-go, it’s a breach of subsidiarity.
So we are still a long way from having the EU works as one nation state.
Agreed, however I’d still say that the lack of a European voting public is the main issue. The rest is details which will work themselves out or actually irrelevant. And the voting public thing is necessarily a generational project. If the whole electorate was Gen X and younger things would look very different indeed.
How much is missing before you can simply call it a state? It’s all about definition.
Plenty is still missing.
A constitution, a parliament with full legislative power, a unified legal system in key areas such as criminal law, federal political parties, a unified citizenship and a unified administrative system.
E.g. you would need to be subject to generally the same laws in France as you are in Italy, which are coming from one constitution that all lawmakers and courts need to uphold. When the passport you made in France need to be renewed you should be able to do that just as easily at any government office in Italy and during elections you should be able to vote the same parties that you were able to vote on before. And the people you elected need to be able to actually submit laws and the laws need to be able to pass purely in the parliament, without a veto and design power purely held by the government (comission).
I don’t know about the parties. We have parties you can only vote for in certain Bundesländer. Like the CSU. You can only vote for them if you live in Bavaria. Or in Schleswig-Holstein there is the party for the Danish minority in Germany. Even in elections on a federal level
The EU has more of a constitution than the UK.
Not necessary for statehood – parliament is still the main legislative power, and requiring parliamentarians to draft laws has its own issues, you need tons of knowledgable staff to do it properly so it makes sense to centralise all the technocratic work. I agree though that staff should be split off from the commission into its independent thing, all three of parliament, commission, and council can then task it to come up with drafts regarding something.
Not all federations have unified criminal law. In Germany it happens to be federal prerogative, but in e.g. the US every state has its own system.
We do have EU citizenship. Restrictions mostly apply to not being able to access other member’s welfare systems if you haven’t worked there for some time.
Fuck no. Are you French or something where municipalities are run by Paris.
Already exist, though the large incumbents basically confederacies of parties… and newer, smaller, ones which started in a united Europe and developed their programme and identity in a pan-European context from the very beginning, like the Pirates and Volt, aren’t recognised because not enough seats, neither in the EP nor member state parliaments.
But that brings me to the one actually crucial point: We need a European political sphere. Bluntly said as long as elections on the EU level are a vehicle to tell national parties whether they fucked up we’re not there, yet, we’re not one voting public but 27.
If ther parliament has no initiative right for legislation, there is no directly democratically legitimized legislative body. And the EU comission is way to indirect to be considered properly legitimized.
That the US is lackluster in its criminal system should not be an acceptable example for us.
While your citizenship extends to allowing you freedom in other EU countries there is still plenty differences outside the EU. But you wouldnt find it that inside a nation state people from one federal state can travel under different rules than people from another federal state. They are all subject to the same rules and that needs to be the case for the EU too, to achieve statehood.
With the unified administrative system it is not about control from one place. It is about uniform standards and uniform interactions. For instance getting married requires different papers and prerequisites depending on country. Things that are a complicated act with multiple personal appointments in Germany can be done in 5 minutes digitally in other countries. This is unacceptable for a nation state.
we do not really have eu wide political parties yet. there is alliances, but those are different and people can only vote the local part of the EU election. There is no EU wide electable lists and worst of all there is different rules to the countries EU elections. Something again impossible in a true collective nation state as elections need to be equal.
So we are still a long way from having the EU works as one nation state.
The parliament can order the comission to draft a law regarding a certain area, and then amend it to their heart’s content. It’s indirect, yes, but as said I think keeping the external drafters is actually a good idea. EU law is complex.
The issue with the US is not structural, but that the enlightenment never arrived among the people there.
Well the EU is trying to make things like visa rules of other countries uniform for all EU citizens. Being a single state would certainly help with that but I don’t think it’s a prerequisite.
It is the norm in Germany: Want to leave a public church? In one state you do that at the Standesamt, in another in the courthouse. Administration is state prerogative. Interoperability is a good thing but telling member states how to do their administration is a no-go, it’s a breach of subsidiarity.
Agreed, however I’d still say that the lack of a European voting public is the main issue. The rest is details which will work themselves out or actually irrelevant. And the voting public thing is necessarily a generational project. If the whole electorate was Gen X and younger things would look very different indeed.