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FT.com: EU draft urges contracts for euro states (October 2, 2012)

The provision, included in a report distributed to EU countries before this month's summit, would require all 17 eurozone members to sign on to the kinds of Brussels-approved policy programmes and timelines now negotiated only with bailout countries.

If adopted, the plan could help to meet demands in Germany for tighter control over the economies of highly indebted countries such as Italy and France that have a mixed record on economic reform.

The proposals, seen by the Financial Times, reflect how far some EU leaders believe they need to overhaul the eurozone with more centralised decision-making. It is a shift that many policy makers conclude will require a wholesale change in EU treaties.

I distribute. You re-distribute. He gives your hard-earned money to lazy scroungers. -- JakeS

Any version of a single currency requires more of a state than we have: there must be more redistribution and there must be an industrial policy. That requires pooling of sovereignty and a sense of solidarity. It doesn't necessarily mean keeping this version of the Euro.

As economic noob it appears to me that a first order priority should be resolving the disconnect between one coin and 17 different interest rates. The Euro-crisis wasn't a direct result from the absence of a single government or the presence of different nation states, but the absence of a centralized monetary framework. Admittedly, that touches sovereignty to a degree.

But I don't yet see a sentence dedicated to that. To me, pitching a federalist union without mentioning the very heart of the problem seems... somewhat opportune.

And if Germany only sees federalism as an enforcer of its own obdurate and self-seeking line, what use will federalism be?

The Third Reich before the invasion of Russia without the tanks, bombings, and fancy duds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wp4O7v5320

We cannot have a Federalism that writes a broken economic model into the Constitution/Treaties.

(As Xavier has already noted, to do so creates an effectively unfixable mess.)

However, Germany will not participate in anything that does not write it's broken economic model into the constitution.

So I don't think we can make progress until we sort out some agreement on an economic model that works.

they'll try everything else first, natch, but if, and it's an immense if, we can rein in banking, purify it of its casino aspect, and tax it properly, we could be successful either as independent countries or as the EU powerhouse we were sold (down the river) on.

their worst practices caused this mess, and unless that cancer is addressed, i don't see a pretty future for our continent, seperate or united.

in one sense sans that extirpation of the greediest, most inhumanly sociopathic element of our societies, whether we rally under sovereign flags or the EU one, the problem remains toxically ignored, embedded at core root level into the warp and woof of all our societies, and eating out their hearts from within.

the carrot was the euro, now it appears comes the stick...

federalism by truncheon, in other words. hate the troika, well tough, you'll never see them anyway, just vote out your local spiv and replace him with another clone in the wings.

neoliberalism wants to return us to feudalism, that much is clear, a world where the 1% rule the 75% by instrumentalisation of the 24% who do the dirty work of torture, wet work, crowd provocation, data crunching, backroom energy and media deals, surveillance, weaponisation and meddling with neighbours for profit.

the membrane of brute thuggishness seems impermeable, seperating the 1% from the rest of us, but the will and means to inform ourselves independently has never been stronger.

what's lacking is....organisation, and germany is taking advantage of this, because it comes as naturally to them as it doesn't to the italians, and probably the greeks, irish, portugese and spanish too.

the PIIG countries don't want to germanise their own cultures, and germany doesn't want to become chaotic, so there's a standoff, germany pointing to the logic of 'stability' but only the germans are able to stomach that much organisation of life.

that's why a bit of german organisation would do a world of good if adopted in the periphery, but no-one wants the full monty.

some germans recognise that the 'organising principle' may have invincible inner coherence as a concept, but carried out becomes a kind of hell world from which they have a great tradition of escaping, through cults like romanticism, fetishisation of exoticism, nietschean megalomania and travel. so many faithfully uphold the society they have created with their superior logical faculties while dreaming how to get out and away to somewhere where the people remember how to feel passion for life and love, can actually be romantic, instead of fondly fetishising it while remaining mired in the mores of a society ruled by the greyspragmatics. they want to lighten up, and we want to get some upgrades in how to intelligently run aspects of society.

europe envies germany's conviction, but ultimately the shoe doesn't fit, and we don't want to wear it. we'd love their industrial chops and export numbers, but fuggedaboutit. Aint. Gonna. Happen...

can we bumble on without them bossing us around?

can they bravely work themselves to death while fantasising of the dolce vita they have to travel to find?

each week a new thrilling episode of this surreality show!

 

It's a fine line between homage, parody, and consumer opportunism. Jess Walter

It seems to me that there are several separate topics mingled together in this discussion.

• Clearly, if you are going to have a single currency then you need a single interest rate.
  
• Probably it is better if you have freedom of movement of workers within the single currency zone, so that individuals can take advantage of changes in conditions over time and geography and tax rates and government benefits.
  
• You need a unified regulatory environment to encourage migration of physical and intellectual assets within the region.

But I'm not sure that this all adds up to an argument for federalism. Sure the U.S. proves that the federal system is the best that can be imagined, right? <not> But what makes our system work to the extent it does is more about having a single, big marketplace. That doesn't require a federal governmental system. The British Commonwealth an example...

The proposition that the European Parliament could just  declare itself a constituent assembly seems absurd. How would the member states react, to what would be a revolutionary attack on existing sovereign nations? Why should they accept any plan, which was not drawn up by a body they had authorised to be a constituent assembly?

What if the national governments just ignored whatever constitution might be drawn up? What prospects would there be for ever bringing a new federal arrangement into force?

If a federal constitution is ever drawn up and brought into force for the EU, it will need the co-operation of all or almost all the national governments.

When the United States decided to revise the Articles of Confederation, the task was not undertaken by the Congress of the Confederation on its own authority. The Philadelphia convention consisted of delegations chosen by 12 of the 13 state legislatures. The resulting constitution had to be ratified by the states.

Rhode Island, which had not been represented at the constitutional convention, eventually had to be coerced into signing up for the new more perfect Union by threats of economic sanctions. However if most of the state governments had not wanted a new constitution it would not have happened, however much people active in the confederation government might have wanted it.