Published in The Times, 19 May 2003
Sir, Mr Andrew Dow questions (letter, May 16) whether a federal Europe might work in a continent with many different peoples, nationalities, etc. These are precisely the circumstances for which a federal Europe is designed.
Opponents sometimes describe the interests of European countries as diverging, in which case they do not need a European institutional system, or converging, in which case they can work together voluntarily. But they overlook a third category: when the countries’ interests conflict.
We need a system of law that will regulate conflicts and a system of democracy to write that law. That is what is meant by a federal Europe. The alternative is international anarchy of a kind last seen in Europe in the 1930s. Surely nobody wants to return to that.
Yours faithfully,