The future of the European Union

The pros and cons of the European Union - Deutsche Welle
http://www.dw.de/the-pros-and-cons-of-the-european-union/av-17672089


The future of Europe: integration or fragmentation?
Will the future hold one Europe or many? This issue is front and center today. Europe has much deeper, longstanding traditions and boundaries than the US does, and this creates all kinds of issues of local and national sovereignty vs. EU sovereignty. Think about it: will it be one Europe-wide bank or many banks? One EU army or many armies? One EU immigration policy or many individual policies tailored to each country?

Europe's Tea Parties
Today 51% of UK voters polled said they would vote to leave the EU, the highest rates of "Euroscepticism" in any EU country. Euroscepticism is led by many conservatives and independents who won big in last spring's elections across Europe. One of the most famous Eurosceptics is Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), similar to the Tea Party in the US. Notice what he says about what the real beauty of Europe is in the video below.

Europe's Federalists
On the other hand, many others view an increasingly-unified Europe as the only way for Europe to compete with the major powers on the world stage like the US and China, just like Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists believed the USA needed a strong central government to hold its own against England and France. They also Europe-wide solutions as the best way to solve many problems like human rights, international trade, and inequality.

In reality, both sides have merit. The EU has great benefits but also poses many conflicts with national and regional governments, it is a messy situation that has to be worked out issue by issue.

In the big picture, this current EU debate has parallels to the debate the US went through among the Founding Fathers, Federalists like Hamilton  vs. Anti-Federalists like Jefferson: should the system favor strengthening local and regional governments with as little Federal government as possible as Jefferson wanted, or should the focus be a single strong, unified government as Hamilton wanted?

But again, there is a major difference: Europe's local and national identities are hundreds and often thousands of years older than in the US, they do not share a common language and they have long histories of identities forged directly in contrast to one another.

Nigel Farage - Eurosceptics are the good Europeans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGmnvkZszcw