"ever closer union"

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Av idén om ett politiskt och ekonomiskt alltmer sammansvetsat Europa har blivit
idén om ett alltmer utvidgat Europa, vilket inte nödvändigtvis är samma idé
även om båda idéerna för närvarande samsas under namnet EU
Göran Rosenberg, kolumn DN 24 augusti 2010

Taking on the 'wolf pack'
President Van Rompuy said:
"We can't have a monetary union at the end without some form of economic and political union,
and that is our big task for the coming weeks and the coming months."
BBC 10 maj 2010
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There can be no more pretence that monetary union respects the premise
on which it was sold to European citizens, Germans in particular.
Financial Times editorial May 10 2010 20:41

There is a real chance that a euro member’s failure to pay its debts will land neighbours or the ECB with losses that can only amount to fiscal transfers or money-printing. Strict surveillance and ECB independence was meant to make it impossible to end up in this situation; both have been undermined.

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Inte heller Fredrik Reinfeldt tycker om den franska formuleringen, men han kan köpa bättre kontroll och koordinering, så länge det inte innebär att EU:s fördrag måste skrivas om.

- Det är bara bra om vi använder de ordningsvakter som finns i det europeiska systemet, säger han

Om alla 27 EU-länderna ställer sig bakom, kommer Herman Van Rompuy att få i uppdrag att leda en grupp som till slutet av året ska föreslå åtgärder för att budgetdisciplinen ska förbättras.

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The accord masks a bitter struggle between Germany and a French-led bloc over the future shape of Europe.
For all the rhetoric, Berlin has refused to cross the Rubicon towards an EU fiscal union, shattering long-held assumptions about the inevitable march of the EU project.
By bringing in the IMF, it ensures that each sovereign state remains responsible for its own debts.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard 25 March 2010

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Karl Sigfrid

Open Europe

Diskussionen om Grekland handlar inte bara om pengar, utan ytterst om fördjupat samarbete.
Euroländerna har i dag gemensam valuta, gemensam penningpolitik och gemensam centralbank. Men varje land sköter själv sina statsfinanser och sin ekonomiska politik. Greklands kris visar på riskerna med det
Men om euroländerna ska ge stöd åt den medlem som råkat i knipa kommer det oundvikligen att följas av krav på inflytande över medlemsländernas ekonomiska politik och budgetar.
Henrik Brors, DN 25/3 2010

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Kommer krisen i Grekland att leda till slutet för valutasamarbetet i EU?
Nej, det mesta pekar för närvarande åt rakt motsatt håll.
Annika Ström Melin, Signerat DN 2010-05-04

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Många euromoståndare i Sverige varnade för den politiska union som Issing förespråkade.
Statsminister Göran Perssons utdragna eurovånda handlade också om valutunionens konstruktion.
Går det att ha gemensam valuta utan att också ha gemensam ekonomisk politik?
Den frågan vände och vred Persson på under flera års tid.
Det borde vid det här laget vara klart att svaret är nej.
Annika Ström Melin, Signerat DN 2010-02-17

Europe stumbles upon closer union
The giant currency union has bound 16 European Union states into a monetary bloc. The member countries, however, remain sovereign states with control over their own taxes and spending.
If it organises a rescue of Greece, the EU will cross a political Rubicon, heading towards a more complete union.
Financial Times editorial, February 12 2010

But even for advocates of closer integration in Europe, this is a mistake. The EU suffers from a lack of popular legitimacy. The manner in which the Lisbon treaty was passed was unedifying, giving the impression that the EU is a stitch-up by a small elite.
If Europe, or just the Eurozone, is to become more deeply joined, it should be a deliberate and honest process, not an accidental and covert one.

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Rubicon - Caesar: Tärningen är kastad
Wikipedia

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Sceptical commentators in places such as America and Britain have long underestimated the political will within the euro zone to defend the single currency, which was always as much a political as an economic project.
Both Mr Sarkozy and Mrs Merkel said at the Brussels summit that the current economic crisis had generated support across the EU for much closer co-ordination of economic policies within the union. Both talked about moving towards an “economic government” for Europe.
Charlemagne, The Economist Feb 11th 2010

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Krugman, Nils Lundgren och Europas Förenta Stater
Rolf Englund blog 2010-02-10

Professor Paul de Grauwe
"Without further steps towards political union, the eurozone has little chance of survival"
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Daily Telegraph 16/7 2007

Frankrike har länge stött en sådan idé och presenterade den mitt under brinnande finanskris i slutet av 2008. Storbritannien och Tyskland fortsätter att vara emot förslaget som de ser som en attack på deras ekonomiska själständighet. Stefan de Vylder tror inte heller att den strategi som Van Rompuy föreslår kommer att kunna lösa något.
– Jag tror det skulle vara svårt att få medlemsländerna att acceptera en sådan överstatlig kontroll över deras budgetar, säger Stefan de Vylder.

Stefan de Vylder

I dag väntas Sverige fällas i EU:s domstol för att regeringen ännu inte infört EU:s så kallade datalagringsdirektiv i svensk lag.
Ekot 4 februari 2010

EU-direktivet ålägger teleoperatörerna att lagra uppgifter om e-posttrafik och telefonsamtal, alltså vem vi ringer och vem vi e-postar till.

It is worth being specific about what much deeper political union would mean.
Those proposing a political federation of 27 EU member countries basically mean a union with much more majority voting, ie a union in which countries can be outnumbered and voted down even on issues that touch on the core political and social contracts between authorities and citizens: issues from taxation to foreign policy.
That is the meaning of all those commentaries from supporters of deeper European integration blaming Copenhagen on the catastrophe of inter-governmental negotiations, in which all countries have a veto.
Charlemagnes notebook, The Econmist Dec 28th 2009

I think there are big problems of democratic legitimacy to be thought through here. Ask pro-integrationists about Europe's lack of connection with voters, and their response is more Europe: pan-European political parties, pan-European publicly funded media, pan-European referendums on new treaties (ideally that are binding if a majority of all EU voters say yes) and candidates standing for pan-European constituencies in the European Parliament. This is a long argument for another day, but I just do not believe you can legislate a European demos into existence.

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Logiken i det hela rör sig i federativ riktning... Sch! säger Kohl åt mig när jag tar upp det.
Göran Persson

Det är målsättningen om ett ständigt fastare förbund
- "ever closer union" -
som är själva grundbultsfelet med EU.
Kunde vi rulla tillbaka Sovjetunionen skall vi väl kunna rulla tillbaka Europeiska Unionen.
Rolf Englund Barometerns website 7/6 2005

Rösta inte på partierna som lägger sig platt
Vi måste förhindra att EU-författningen kuppas igenom
Rolf Englund, Barometern 31/3 2004

I can think of only two reasons, why the loss of Lisbon should excite such anger and determination.
First, it doesn’t matter what the treaty does. It is just unacceptable for one small country to thwart the will of the political leaderships of the big countries.
The second reason could be that the treaty is crucial because it is the next stage in the drive for political union, which began with the Single European Act and continued with Maastricht and the creation of the Euro. Lisbon, in itself, is a disappointingly small step towards political union.
But - if it is stopped - the whole process is stopped. And that is unacceptable.
Gideon Rachman, Financial Times June 24, 2008

British/American Special Relationship and European Union
Britain cannot have two best friends
John Bolton, Financial Times 1/8 2007

At Tuesday's press conference in Strasbourg, the Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was asked what the European Union would be after the new reform treaty has been negotiated and agreed.
His answer: Europe is an empire, a non-imperial one, must be said.
But still, an empire.
EUX.TV 10/7 2007

If you want to understand what is happening to the European Union’s constitution, the EU flag is a good place to start.
European leaders will agree to delete references to the flag in the constitution.
Everybody knows the flags will keep flying.
The words in the constitution will change.
But the substance will remain the same.
Gideon Rachman, Financial Times June 12 2007

The European Project has been about building a European super-state - Ruth Lea
Europe's ``ever closer union'' is turning into an ever more divided one - Bloomberg
Det är målsättningen om "ever closer union" som är själva grundbultsfelet med EU - Rolf Englund

From the Treaty of Paris (1951), which set up the European Coal and Steel Community, and the Treaty of Rome (March 1957), which set up the European Economic Community, to the Constitutional Treaty (signed in 2004), the EU has been working towards the "ever closer union of the peoples of Europe".
The European Project, from the very start, has been about building a European super-state – though cleverly masked as an economic exercise.
A looser and more open Europe is surely the way forward for the 21st century.
Ruth Lea, Daily Telegraph 20/11 2006

Ruth Lea is the director of the Centre for Policy Studies and a non-executive of Arbuthnot Banking Group

There are real public concerns about the scope and pace of enlargement. Moreover, these concerns are likely to be intensified with the accession of Romania and Bulgaria, both very poor countries, in January 2007.

Under the current Treaty of Nice, the EU cannot have more than 27 members. The maximum figure will be reached /have been reached/ with the accession of Romania and Bulgaria.

In February 2005, French President Chirac inserted a clause into the French Constitution, subjecting every new candidate for EU membership to a referendum of the French electorate. The implication is that any enlargement beyond the current EU plus Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia (whose entry negotiations were in the pipeline before the amendment was pushed through) can be rejected by the French electorate.

Apart from Croatia, the other candidate countries comprise the Republic of Macedonia and, most controversially of all, Turkey. Potential candidate countries are the West Balkan countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia.

The solution to both these challenges is to replace the monolithic 20th century EU model with a new 21st century "à la carte Europe", where individual states can negotiate different relationships with the EU, deciding which is the most appropriate.

There are many possible catalysts for this desirable, arguably necessary, change. I suggest two.

The first is if the UK were to open negotiations for a changed relationship with the EU to one basically of free trade, opting out of political union and thus ceasing to be a member of the EU as currently structured.

The second would be the formal recognition that some candidate countries, notably Turkey, cannot be full members of the present monolithic EU.

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What was meant to be Europe's ``ever closer union'' is turning into an ever more divided one.
As the European Union marks its 50th birthday this week, it faces a growing backlash against the federal visions of its post-World War II founders, who gave Europe a common market, a currency, a flag and an anthem.
March 19, 2007 (Bloomberg)

``Europe faces one of its gravest political crises since World War II,'' says Charles Kupchan, a professor of international relations at Georgetown University in Washington and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
``It's completely conceivable that the EU has reached its high-water mark.''

For years, the six original members sought a more closely knit economy with the goal of bringing political unity in through the back door. That was the two-track strategy mapped out by Jean Monnet, the French cognac salesman turned founding father of a united Europe.

The high point of European unity was in 1991, when European leaders met in Maastricht, the Netherlands, to sketch the road map to a single currency.
The federalists, though, haven't given up. They are pinning their hopes on German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in her first stint in the bloc's six-month rotating presidency, to salvage at least part of the constitution, which 18 countries have ratified. A few want to go even further: Belgium's prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, is calling for a United States of Europe with its own taxes and army. Merkel's first step, at the March 25 festivities, is to win a consensus for a declaration on the EU's future.

The Germans have already made one concession, jettisoning the word ``constitution.''
The new, less provocative term: ``institutional settlement.''

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Grundlagen - The Constitution/institutional settlement

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Det är målsättningen om ett ständigt fastare förbund
- "ever closer union" -
som är själva grundbultsfelet med EU.
Kunde vi rulla tillbaka Sovjetunionen skall vi väl kunna rulla tillbaka Europeiska Unionen.
Rolf Englund Barometerns website 7/6 2005

Det folken har sagt nej till är, efter vad jag förstår, att EU skall utvecklas till en stat.

Det är målsättningen om ett ständigt fastare förbund - "ever closer union" som är själva grundbultsfelet med EU.

Återför makt från EU till de nationella parlamenten.
Avskaffa EMU.

Man måste vara blind om man inte ser att EU skaffar sig statens alla institutioner och symboler, flagga, mynt, president, parlament, domstol, försvar - och - som man nu försökte - en grundlag.

Kunde vi rulla tillbaka Sovjetunionen skall vi väl kunna rulla tillbaka Europeiska Unionen.

I själva verket verkar det som om om tillbakarullningen redan har börjat.

Barometern-OT må ha varit mycket skeptisk till tanken att med politiska beslut skapa en gemensam europeisk valuta – euron.
Men på det rent politiska planet ser tidningen en europeisk federalism som den framtid som ger störst frihet och möjligheter för Europas medborgare.
Replik på Rolf Englund
Barometern 8/6 2005

EU spenderar varje år åtskilliga miljarder kronor på tevekanaler, radiostationer, tankesmedjor, trycksaker, kampanjer och resor för journalister.
Kommunikationsinsatsen propagerar för en stark och enhetlig europeisk union. En utveckling som flera folkomröstningar har sagt nej till.
Det visar en ny rapport från Timbro
Tankesmedjans vd Maria Rankka, samt utredarna Philip Thomasson-Lerulf och Hannes Kataja
DN Debatt 2009-07-26