United States of Europe

The term United States of Europe (often also United Europe ) is a political slogan of the European Movement, with its rejection or acceptance own European policy objectives should be clarified. It is often used as a synonym for political cooperation between the Member States of the European Union.

In the wake of the economic influence of Germany also like the concept of the Federal Republic of Europe is used by the media.

Vs. USA

Concept and idea are inspired by the model of the United States of America.

George Washington is quoted as saying:

Benjamin Franklin sent in 1778 to a friend in Paris a proposal for a federal constitution for the European countries and said:

Term originating

Come up the term in the mid-19th century. The Scottish writer Charles Mackay claimed to have first in the spring of 1848, ahead of Victor Hugo, Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi, the term "United States of Europe" shaped. On the pacifist congress in 1849 in Paris Victor Hugo said:

1920s

Since the 1920s, the term was often used. Richard Coudenhove- Kalergi used the terms " Pan " and " United States of Europe" in parallel, but preferred the former. Ludwig Quidde saw in the United States of Europe " a slogan from the early days of organized European pacifism ".

As the first major party in Europe, the SPD took at the party from 13 to 18 September 1925, the demand for the realization of the United States of Europe in the applicable until 1959 Heidelberg program, with the wording:

Postwar to Present

In September 1946, Winston Churchill called in a speech at the University of Zurich this on, to build " a kind of United States of Europe". In the same year a congress of European federalists took place in Hertenstein in Switzerland. There, twelve theses were written that were as Hertensteiner program the basis for European work of the post-war years, and at the same time the political founding document of the European Union, Germany. The aim is to this day a " built federative basis, European community". Margaret Thatcher leaned in her Bruges speech of 20 September 1988, the United States of Europe expressly.

Counter Eurosceptics in the Union parties (CDU and CSU) Chancellor Helmut Kohl stressed that he for the European Community, although a " federal solution " striving that this " has by no means as a kind of United States of Europe ' be misunderstood ." 1993 called carbon the United States of Europe an " ambiguous formula ". Synonymous with this dazzling expression has been argued in this time especially against a European federal state.

In the wake of the euro crisis - it was the public aware of the fall of 2009 by the Greek financial crisis - the term is often used.

In August 2011, Federal Labour Minister Ursula von der Leyen said the magazine Der Spiegel over: "My goal is the United States of Europe - after the pattern of the federal states, Switzerland, Germany or the U.S.."

As part of a state visit to the EU Commission on 17 April 2012 said the following Germany's Federal President Joachim Gauck: "We're not there yet, the change of mentality is very much slower than the development of the intellect ... I must be a realist, I see it in moment not yet. I wish it to be, because individual States, no matter how they think of themselves, no longer have the economic power ".

While an EU summit in Brussels on November 7, 2012 German Chancellor Angela Merkel campaigned for the United States of Europe: "I am in favor of the Commission one day is such a thing as a European government."

Also campaigned Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission, as part of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Union for the model of the United States of Europe.

Under the motto " now or never " advocated the Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino, the United States of Europe as a goal to be realized.

The Spinelli Group is committed to a federal Europe, it relies on Spinelli which the quote " It will be the moment of new action and it will be the moment for new men: the moment for a free and united Europe" uttered. The Spinelli Group has also set up a manifesto on their website, which is accessible to everyone and can be signed public or private.

In Citizens program of the FDP for the parliamentary election in 2013 we find the following program point: "At the end of the development is a legitimate by a Europe-wide referendum European federal state are. "

Italy's Foreign Minister Emma Bonino defended in a report published on February 6, 2014 interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the German policy during the euro crisis, and called it for the United States from Europe.