I found this TED talk of Yanis Varoufakis on his point of you of the key issues of the EU.
He states that the current crisis is not a good time for federalisation, as, as he sees it, EU is collapsing on itself. I am not sure if I agree or not with him, but there are some interesting points:
- there is a need of aggregate/common banking sector, (current) debt management, and investment; this means, that for the financial issues, Europe is seen as a whole.
- strengthen national sovereignty, and make every country more responsible, not to hide under the EU rules, law, etc.
This way all EU countries will be able to run on balanced budgets and will learn to live within their means. When you put the money question of the table, countries may be able to focus on their “core business” – creating a safe and productive environment for their citizens.
It sounds a lot like how USA were forged. There was a federal government, in charge of fiscal issues, and there were semi-sovereign states, which could run their policies as they wished, but on the demand of having a balanced budget. If an asymmetric crisis struck one of the states, the others shared the burden via the common financial market, helping the poor one out.
Miha Hillenkamp 