“The EU has served the people of Europe well. It is abundantly apparent that it is capable of much more, which is why we must jealously guard it from those that would try to snatch its levers from us. A United Europe could provide for European peace, prosperity, strength, quality of life, and the ability to build not just a better Europe but a better and safer world. A United States of Europe, structured properly, could benefit Europeans and the world.”
“A federal Europe is a pretty good idea, if it possessed an accountable administration with a clear European identity and position on the world stage; had vested in it only those key disciplines that are best and most efficiently managed on a European level; embraced Europe’s diversity; and devolved as many matters as possible to Europe’s regions.”
from “Europe’s Constitutional Treaty: A Threat to Democracy and How to Avoid It” – Foreign Policy Research Institute Newsletter, Volume 4, Number 5, December 2003 – http://www.fpri.org/ww/0405.200312.ganley.euconstitution.html
N.B. The article is very critical of the constitutional treaty, on the grounds that it is not federalist enough