and states with massive economic resources. Effectively the United
States and, possibly, Japan are the only political and economic
systems with big enough tax bases and consumer markets to develop
on their own massive technological innovations such as space
research, genetic engineering or super computer networks with built-
in artificial intelligence. Individual European countries left to
compete on their own (with the possible exception of Germany now it
is united) will become (as to some extent they already are) merely
important subsidiary areas for competition between US and Japanese
‘multinationals’. Only if Europe is a real single market and its
research and development effort is genuinely pooled can it hope to
remain an area where first-rate scientific, technological and hence
industrial development on a substantial scale takes place.
Politically too the existence of a directly elected European
Parliament can hardly be reversed. Once constituted, given the domi-
nant traditions of representative democracy, the European executive
must, in the long term, become responsible to it (or to the people
directly). A democratically constituted European executive will find
itself the focus for enormous expectations for a peaceful, prosperous
and united Europe. Already the EU has been expected to play a peace-
making role in the former Yugoslavia – even though Yugoslavia has
never been a part of the EU.
It is possible that Britain might withdraw from the ‘United States
of Europe’. This is, however, unlikely since the majority of its trade is
with the EU and virtually all the inward investment it attracts is
because Britain is inside the EU trading area. As the euro becomes
better established, London may find it difficult to remain the prime
European financial centre if sterling is retained.
An analogy can be drawn between European developments at the
present time and American history in the period 1776–1789.
Following the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the thirteen
former American colonies agreed to a ‘confederation’. Because of an
insistence on the sovereignty of the individual states, Congress was
without adequate executive, judicial or financial machinery with
which to attempt to manage the security and economy of North
America. Congress’s failure to meet the expectations its very existence
generated led to the adoption of the present constitution in 1789.
Similarly the prospect of the accession of ten additional countries
to the EU and a ‘democratic deficit’ in existing institutions led to the
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