Joshua Livestro has written a fantastic book about the history of the idea of a federal European Union. I knew about the book from one of the columns of Simon Kuper in the Financial Times. The volume should be read by all Europeans, and belong to the bookshelf of any European federalist.
It tells the history of a 500 year-old idea, from Machiaveli to the founding fathers of the European Union ancestor institutions, Monnet and Schuman.
The success of the nation-state after the Middle Ages was challenged very early by the ideas of many authors and philosophers, and by the pratices of leagues of cities, empires, federations and confederations.
The twentieth century lived through the biggest explosion of a long run old battle, the battle between nationalism and shared sovereignty. The myth that nationalism and international integration could peacefull coexist was demolished by the Second World war. The idea of national self-determination, which was seen by many, including US President Wilson, as the final remedy agaist wars, provoked instead the biggest of all wars, because the self-determination of one procclaimed nation prevented the self-determination of another overlapping one.
It was only after the second World War that progressive thinkers and activists like Arendt or Spinelli reached the conclusion that national sovereignty was incompatible with peace and that the future of Europe depended instead on sharing sovereignty instead of restricting it to the national level.
An important innovation in the postwar years was that gradual strategies became key in an uncertain world: economic objectives should take priority (for example, by sharing resources such as coal and steel), and projects should start with a core of countries and expand thereafter.
We know about the difficulties of the present, with the threat of Trump and his olygarchs, of Putin and the far right. But the EU will be run in the next five years by basically a coalition of democratic leaders, with Ursula Von der Leyen and Teresa Ribera in the European Commission and Antonio Costa in the European Council. They have the Draghi Report as their guide. Romania ans Bulgaria have just joined the Schengen agreement, and the single market and single currency remain in place. Spinelli and Arendt would be proud for it, and ready to fight to defend these achievements and expand from them.
This book about the history of an idea contains the intellectual ingredients to fight for peace and union in our current difficult times.
