Yeah, always wonderes about that one. The US started as a loose confederation of nations (states), and that was solved by our Civil War. IIRC, that cost more American lives than every other war combined, including the unofficial ones.

> A federal power without enough authority to resolve a lot of issues.

It's a work in progress. Rome wasn't built in a day. It was always going to be tricky when trading sovereignty and given the different cultures.

But more importantly it's headed in the right direction and it's a glorious project for actual EU citizens.

> No, the EU started as a trade alliance and evolved into the bureaucratic behemoth it is today.

This a very limited reading of History. The main purpose of the coal and steel community was to make war between France and Germany impossible by making both countries dependent on each other. Read the Schuman declaration and the first Rome treaties, they are not that complicated. It always was political.

both points can be right.

the original impetus being to use trade to solve a political problem, but the original impetus was not federalism, although I imagine there were federalists around at the time.

at some point it became about free trade. and then there was a realisation that free trade between unequal economies was not sustainable. And similarly that consumer rights in a world where infrastructure and technology barriers had been removed, were also not sustainable via the protectionism that public ownership and state control provided.

There was then a need to control the excesses of free markets and the four freedoms in general, and the need to liberalise sectors that were not in the private space.

Hence the need for political union.

> both points can be right.

Well, yes and no. What actually happened was that a united Europe was the desired outcome, with some discussion about the degree of unity. But they realised back in the 1950s that it would take some time, and they started doing it by steps, starting with the industry. So in that sense it was both. But that’s not what people mean when they moan about the EU being a perversion of the EEC which was supposed to be purely economic. It is usually followed by how the evil EU duped them and stole their sovereignty. It was not. The economic policies were tools to achieve a political goal.

> but the original impetus was not federalism

The original impetus was a political union to avoid war and an “ever-closer union”. While federalists were never the majority, the target was clearly integration. Again, this is in the preamble of the Rome treaty establishing the EEC.

> Hence the need for political union.

Again, this is backwards. Political union required economic union as a first step.

What was in the public realm is the only thing that matters.

The votes in the 70s / 80s, which were the basis of what we have now were about trade, not peace via trade.

you are referring to 'they' without qualifying 'they'.

Political union was never on a ballot paper in most countries. In the cases it was (Maastricht referendums) then it was not conclusive .

> No, the EU started as a trade alliance and evolved into the bureaucratic behemoth it is today

You're not disagreeing, just adding additional context. A quick search established the following:

> The European Community (EC) was created in 1957 as a way to foster trade cooperation and reduce tensions in the aftermath of World War II.

So in effect, the trade alliance was started to avoid war; lessons were drawn from WWI tensions leading to WWII.

> into the bureaucratic behemoth it is today

It's the usual argument of EU hater but it's not based on any fact. The are 2800000 in US Federal government and 32000 in European commission. Lots of cities have more employee than the European commission. For example, New-York city has 325000 employees !

EU countries also have huge taxes, taking 50% of your income directly and if we also calculate VAT and all indirect taxes like for electricity, taxes will be something like 80%. So basically for the most people in countries like Germany work doesn't worth it, because you can get almost the same income from the state as social help without doing any work at all...

But people in Germany do work. You could hardly pick a worse example for the claim than the German economy. The EU in general is incredibly productive. Last I knew (awhile ago), the only difference between EU and US productivity was that people in the EU had longer vacations.

Also, the wealthiest, most productive and innovative parts of the US have the highest taxes.

I see this argument about the bureaucratic Europe being presented a lot.

Please consider EU is not a de-facto federation, nor many of its founding members wants that.

So I am curious:

How would you envision the daily activity of an EU that should satisfy at least the following points:

- Countries does not want to delegate their full decision power to EU

- Each country wants to keep as much as possible their specific laws, habits, quircks while also wanting _easy_ access to the other country market, lands, citizens

- No country wants to be treated less equal then the others

- Still all countries wants to be together for a greater good (or maybe for the fear of what would happen if they will be alone - see UK now)

Thus I don't see any other way than having a big organisation that handles every small details, that handles with care each national pride and find the best way forward.

It might not seem that way but European countries still have in their collective memories both their own national pride, old disputes with neighbours and the memories of some extraordinary damaging wars.

And the reason it might not seem that European countries are still individual entities is EU. It managed to find the best path that is does not generate conflict.