Europe as a single country: the dream that returns in times of crisis

Europe as one country: the magic formula that never quite works

Europe has a scale problem. Some believe the solution is as simple as merging all its states into a single nation. It may be the most ambitious, most naive and most dangerous proposal currently circulating in the continent's economic debate.

The temptation of the giant

The arithmetic is devastating: Russia, China, India, Brazil, Algeria, Nigeria or Canada play in a different league. Against them, the European countries on their own are little more than pieces on a chessboard they no longer control. Hence the idea that full political union is the only way for Europe to keep counting in the world.

The comparison with microstates seals the argument. Monaco, Liechtenstein, Andorra or Luxembourg prove that size is not everything — but also that strategic irrelevance exists. A small country can be rich. What it cannot be, some argue, is a global player.

The seams of union

The problem is that scale is one thing and identity another. Roman and Germanic Europe, Catholic and Protestant or Orthodox Europe, Atlantic and Mediterranean Europe share neither memory nor institutions that can easily be merged. If governing Spain with its autonomous communities is already hard, imagine a hypothetical country with twenty-seven "regions" with their own languages, histories and vetoes.

The alternative put forward by sovereigntists is the "Europe of nations", the confederal formula defended by De Gaulle and later by Le Pen's political family. No centralized federalism: cooperation between states with veto power. And in the background looms the eternal question of language: some propose English as the common language, not out of love for London, but for pure practicality. Others prefer Greek, Latin and Spanish, as if history could be revived by decree.

The historical mirage

Defenders of full union play with history. The Greek city-states defeated Persia when they federated in the Attic League; they fell when Macedonia arrived united. Rome began as a minor city and took centuries to become an empire. If that worked on a small scale, why not on a continental one?

The skeptics' answer is also historical: forced union has always failed, and the temptation of the "ultranation" that Ortega y Gasset spoke of has been crashing against reality for decades. Even the American federal project needed a civil war, and even so it keeps causing trouble.

In the best case, the idea will crash against bureaucracy. In the worst, the pretense of solving everything with a single country ignores the fact that European history is a succession of failures of imposed unity. The next time someone sells total merger as a magic formula, it would be worth asking who pays the cost. The idea is not dead: it is just waiting for the next moment of crisis.