Federalism, Unification of Europe and European Union

Federalism, Unification of Europe and European Union

Eduards Bruno Deksnis The Swiss Confederation has existed and weathered numerous political challenges to remain intact as a voluntary union of three major linguistic and ethnic groups. It is not, however, a model for the process of unification of competing nation-states in Europe that began after the end of the Second World War. The attraction of federalism, extending to calls for creation of a United States of Europe date from 1849 but seem to have run their course by 1975. However, the intellectual discussions that already began during the period of underground resistance to Nazi Germany during the Second World War reformulated the aim of establishing a federation of European nation-states. European integration based on the Treaty of Rome establishing the European Economic Community in 1956 indeed called for an ever closer union of the people of Europe. Initial steps towards emphasizing the federalist nature of such union, however, were halted in the late 1960s.  The most recent revision of the Treaty of Lisbon dealing with the legal aspects and institutional competences of the European Union has only minimally amplified the slight federal nature of the European Union. A number of Latvians in cooperation with a larger number of Estonians living as refugees in Sweden and Germany became involved in discussions on European Federalism and on establishing a Baltic Section for the European Movement. Hopes that these efforts might facilitate restoration of their lost independence were unrealistic. Moreover, their efforts to explain issues of European integration passed almost unnoticed by their fellow countrymen living in exile.