The United States of Europe

Art by thumboy21

I just read in The Sunday Business Post, Michael McDowell's article about the speech Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament Coordinator on Brexit, gave in the Oireachtas last week.

Despite his humour - he said as a Belgian, surrealism comes naturally to him, but to reinstate a border would be more than surreal - his soothing words assuring "we (EU) will never allow Ireland to suffer as a result of the British to leave the EU. That's a commitment given by the European Parliament and the European Union as a whole" - are actually quite meaningless without a proper explanation on what he meant by "suffer" and by "EU as a whole".

Clearly Ireland has been a thorn in the EU's foot when it comes to corporation taxes, and the recent news about Apple's €13bn tax evasion in Ireland (and the mystery why Ireland doesn't want it back) only helps EU with more ammunition towards an more unified tax system across Europe. Verhofstadt's ideas are no secret to anyone. It's all there in his books - The United States of Europe (Federal Trust) and the latest Europe's Last Chance: Why the European States Must Form a More Perfect Union, among others.

Question is: will it be that bad to have a Federal Europe?