ABSTRACT
Introduction In the first decade of the twenty-first century, a significant change has occurred in the debate about the end goal or finalité politique of the European Union (EU). At the start of the decade, a number of outstanding scholars reiterated the original dilemma that the EU had either to become a federal state or to establish itself as a union of states. The founder of the Department of Political Science at the University of Geneva, Dusan Sidjanski, began his study on the revival of federalism in Europe in 2001 with the almost Caesarian line that the EU is divided between two opposing tendencies that are developing at its heart: the community dynamic, which builds a union with a federal vocation, and intergovernmental cooperation in foreign and internal policies (Sidjanski 2001). A few years later, the Belgian political scientist Paul Magnette published a book entitled What is the European Union? in which he emphasised that, since the seventeenth century, legal theorists have repeated that only two forms of union between states are possible: either the confederation, born of an international treaty concluded between sovereign states, where all decisions are unanimously adopted by state representatives; or the federal state, established by a constitution, where the law voted on by a bicameral parliament applies directly to the citizens. Tertium non datur. There is no third way (Magnette 2005). Over the last year, however, the debate about the future of the European Union has become dominated by the question as to whether or not the EU should evolve towards a political union and, if so, how deep this union should go. Although the suggestion has been outright rejected by a number of government leaders, notably by the British Prime Minister Cameron in his Europe speech of 23 January 2013, the German Chancellor Merkel and President of the European Council Van Rompuy are utilising the discussions about the strengthening of the EMU to argue that the creation of a political union is the best way forward for the EU. The insistence of these prominent European politicians on the use of this term raises a number of fundamental questions, two of which will be addressed in this essay: (1) Is it conceivable for the EU to develop towards a political union? (2) If so, what are the consequences for political science and the theory of international relations?
