ABSTRACT
The federally structured and organized state, where sovereign bodies are unified under one centralized authority, has a long history in Western civilization. The growing economic and political integration within the European Community (EC) may be threatening the delicate separation of powers embodied in the Federal Republic of Germany. The roots of German federalism go back at least as far as the seventeenth century, following the Treaty of Westphalia's failure to produce a unified Germany. In the modern German Federalist system, responsibility and competence are divided between the Bund and the Lander. As Gottfried Dietze explains the founders of the Federal Republic. Although EC integration poses an identifiable threat to the Lander, the outlook for the German states in practice may be less bleak than it appears. The prospect of a borderless Europe unquestionably offers the EC member-nations a multitude of economic, cultural, social, and political opportunities.
