The best thing I can think of is to make the EU a strong, powerful, wealthy democracy that can defend itself from invasion and try to encourage other democracies around the world.
Which means we have a lot of work ahead, to put it mildly.
The EU suddenly feels flimsy and badly defended. I hope that negative motivation puts the fear into people and motivates action faster than this reality can be exploited by bad actors, who seem to be ready and waiting.
Agreed, but I don't think I'd say sudden. Some have been pointing out that weak militaries and pacifism were a luxury afforded only through naivete and wishful thinking. Hell, Ireland's whole defense strategy is "but everyone likes us!" and "well I'm sure Britain will help in a pinch".
I was always receptive to those arguments, but I think even the people making them only felt them conceptually. The thick layer of civilization and “end of history” vibes just felt impenetrable. Then around brexit times it started to feel a little shaky, and more so with the Ukraine war.
I think Trump decisively stripped the last of the illusions away, most people feel the vulnerability in their bones now.
For that to work, the individual governments need to give more of their responsibilities up to the EU level, which is unfortunately somewhat unpopular.
It may be unpopular but Volt is increasing its presence on all levels from local councils to European Parliament, so there’s a desire among some voters for more EU federalism. In Germany they may come close to the results of FDP on the upcoming elections.
Fortunately in my country of Austria the liberal party (NEOS from the EU Renew Europe faction) already supports a "United States of Europe", but it "only" has around ~10% at the moment (though it is growing).
But the new government of pro-russian neonazis (FPÖ) and conservatives (ÖVP) will probably be very anti-EU.
It's 2025. You can drive across most European countries in a day (a long day, in some cases, but still).
If Europe wants to stick to the borders a bunch of kings and princes hashed out in blood a hundred+ years ago it can, for the moment, but if we do, there's a decent chance it will just be crushed by the next global superpower (US, China, or weirdly enough maybe Russia considering how much influence they have over many US politicians now).
I love Europe. I was proud to become an EU citizen and my favourite scarf is an EU flag. I think it's an amazing place full of amazing countries and people. And it still can be! But for it to continue to exist, we MUST work together. Militarily, economically, and even practically (why is it so hard to book train tickets across 3 countries again?)
I know it stings, but the reality is the wolves are at the gates. Democracy has its back against the wall and we need a force that can fight back. Or government of the people, by the people, for the people, will soon perish from the Earth.
> If Europe wants to stick to the borders a bunch of kings and princes hashed out in blood a hundred+ years ago it can
If the EU wants to stick to a technocratic structure pushing unpopular laws over the democratic institutions won in blood, it'll be probably be democratically a hard sell to give it more powers.
I agree that Europe should have more unification and coordinated action. But I don't love the EU. I quite liked social democracy, but then it was outlawed by the EU.
It was nice to have public control over the infrastructure, possibility to have industry for public benefit, possibility to nationalize out of control private sectors, possibility to retain assets and capital domestically, to control fiscal and monetary policy etc.
Unpopular because it is undemocratic. The EU is a bureaucracy that works against democracy. Its goal is to steal more and more power from national governments that are run by elected representatives towards a bureaucracy that decides their next actions in Davos.
The European Parliament is directly elected by the citizens of the European Union. The European Council consists of government leaders of the EU countries, which are also chosen in most countries based on the results of elections. The only exception is the European Commission, which is chosen by indirect democracy (nominated by member countries, approved by the parliament, and they can dissolve the EC).
Why is the EC a problem? In many democracies the executive branch is instated and kept in check by a parliament. The EC are not always my picks and there is definitely a lot of politics involved, but I think it's an asset that people with some level of expertise are selected and that the executive branch is somewhat protected against making very short-term decisions because they have to think about their next election.
People should stop bashing the EU. Like any democracy it has its issues, but it is hugely successful in avoiding war between countries that have been in war for centuries, plus the EU actually has a spine and has generally (with exceptions) protected people's privacy, protected people against large companies, etc.
The primary weakness of the EU is that it cannot do enough yet (but every crisis makes leaders realize that working together at the EU-level is more successful than trying to operate as a single country).
I've heard this often and I don't understand it at all.
Every government in the world has a permanent set of employees which enact policy and turn political intentions into legislation. Usually these are split into departments, each headed by temporary political appointee.
So exactly like the European Commission, then. Why is it only "undemocratic" when the European Union does it?
Are you suggesting that all 32000 people working for it should be elected? I'm quite certain there is no government in the world which does that and it seems quite impractical.
Or should every political appointment be directly elected, instead of appointed by a head of state? You could do that, but I am not aware of any major government which does so, so if that's the sole reason to call it "undemocratic" then it's a double standard.
The EC desires to get more and more power over EU countries' policy, with the excuse of "doing its job". In a normal country, the executive branch is also elected by the population. In the EU, they get there by appointment, so they are an extra step removed from democracy. It is just the opposite of what you want to do to improve democracy. Instead of more opportunities for people to control government, you're creating an extra level of indirection that makes control even harder.
Democratic and EU unfortunately doesn't mesh that well.
In the current form federal EU would be someting like having an unelected powerful executive branch, and a semi-elected weak legistlative branch. Furthermore the populace has very little idea about what is happening in the EU and who to hold accountable, partly because the media doesn't cover it, and partly because the processes are extremely convoluted and quite opaque.
Such "democratic centralism" bureaucracy probably would have benefits like more stability for long term strategy, swift execution of policies and coordinated action, but it's also very prone to corruption and elite capture.
Yes, a more accurate characterization would be someting like partially elected legislative branch.
The parliament is directly elected, but it doesn't have full legislative powers. It can't propose new laws and the Council of the EU has veto over the parliament. Dissolving the EC also needs a supermajority.
The structure is at least way less directly democratic than any EU country.
The best thing I can think of is to make the EU a strong, powerful, wealthy democracy that can defend itself from invasion and try to encourage other democracies around the world.
Which means we have a lot of work ahead, to put it mildly.