Post War and the EU

In his book, Post War, Tony Judt looks at the creation of modern day Europe. He starts out with the ending of World War II and goes right up to the present time. His goal was to study how European countries and other countries in the Eurasian continent were shaped leading to their present forms economically, politically and socially.
One of the most interesting topics for me in the book was the creation of the EU and the emerging European culture. The European Union was mainly established to allow the movement and better circulation of goods between European countries. The creators of the EU saw it as a way to move the continent forward economically and promote efficiency. Next The EU was also established to create a European identity and implant certain institutions for things like health care and employment, implementing a sort of European parliament and common currency. The guidelines for the early Union were laid in the treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam. However, due to a lack of central leadership and control, the EU faced several problems. There were serious budget problems as many countries in the union took more than they gave in the form of farm subsides and other economic assistance. Also some members lagged behind in bringing their countries' standards up to those of the European ones
and the common currency that had been created was affecting some countries negatively. The EU attempted to deal with these problems with the Treaty of Rome in 2004. This treaty gave clearer instructions for the European standards to be established and created a constitution, making the implementing of institutions and general role of the EU government more clearly defined. The Treaty of Rome also lessened the national role in the EU government, strengthening the EU overall.
After all this, I believe that the European Union does constitute some type of federation. This union is trying to establish what it means to be European in a sense by bringing all of the different European countries under some similar institutions. However, even with its common currency and EU parliament, I do not believe that the union can be called a complete federation. Judt speaks to the fact that many people, even in Europe, are still unclear on exactly what the EU is and what it does. This system, he says, has not done a good enough job on educating its members as to what it means to be part of the EU and the full powers of the union. Next, the EU has no real established foreign policy or laws for wars between member countries. There still seems to be a emphasis on the economic policy rather than real political policies. I do not think you can call the EU a full federation as they have not established a central European identity or a common way of thinking yet and do not really have political control over the countries of Europe. Judt also mentions this as he says the culture of Europe is slowly beginning to emerge in his conclusion. Here he uses art and sports to try to show how Europe is coming together more and more. With art, he claims that many countries are beginning to see the importance of high culture and many are lending more government money to support it. Next, he says that sports like football, an important cultural event, reach across countries as players are brought in from all over the world. I agree that Europe is beginning to show more of a European identity, but there is still an overall emphasis on the individual countries themselves, not Europe as a whole. Each country retains its own kind of art, its own national sport and its national language. Although it is beginning to show now, I believe that once this European identity gets stronger the EU will move to being more of a federation and less emphasis will be placed on the country individually and more on Europe collectively, which will create more of a political power for the EU. For now the EU cannot be considered a complete federation as it lacks the power to create important polices for all of its members and the fact that people still see themselves as European second to the country they come from.