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0 pointsrunarberg5y ago0 comments

I’m not an EU expert so hopefully someone can correct me if I’m wrong. But I think the USA-EU comparisons are superficial at best. The EU has half the states the USA does but 50% more population.

Unlike the USA—which has a really strong executive branch—there is hardly any executive branch in the EU. Instead the executive powers are held almost entirely by the member states. The EU does have a legislative branch (just like the USA) with around 650,000 people per representative. USA has around 750,000 but that number is further devalued by the USA senate (3,500,000 people per representative) which can hold a lot of power over the congress. I’m not aware that the EU has any equivalent.

The scope of the two systems is also vastly different. The USA federal government represents the foreign policy of each of the state, funds a military which answers to the government, finances much of the infrastructure within the USA, etc. In the EU foreign policy is largely held by the member states, there is no EU military, and funding for infrastructure projects is more likely to come mostly from the member state it self, then from the EU. The USA collects federal taxes, while the EU gets their funding from the member states.

Both have a federated court system. The USA have federal criminal courts which I’m not sure that the EU has, or at least not in the same way the USA does.

To summarize: The US federal government and the EU have in common that they both have a democratically elected legislator (both with relatively low representation) and they both have a federal court system. But this is where the similarities end.

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bobthepanda5y ago

There was a period in American history, the Articles of Confederation, which is more similar to how the EU works today.

> The Articles of Confederation created a loose union of states. The confederation's central government consisted of a unicameral Congress with legislative and executive function, and was composed of delegates from each state in the union. Congress received only those powers which the states had previously recognized as belonging to king and parliament.[15] Each state had one vote in Congress, regardless of its size or population, and any act of Congress required the votes of nine of the 13 states to pass;[16] any decision to amend the Articles required the unanimous consent of the states. Each state's legislature appointed multiple members to its delegation, allowing delegates to return to their homes without leaving their state unrepresented.[17] Under the Articles, states were forbidden from negotiating with other nations or maintaining a military without Congress's consent, but almost all other powers were reserved for the states.[18] Congress lacked the power to raise revenue, and was incapable of enforcing its own legislation and instructions. As such, Congress was heavily reliant on the compliance and support of the states.[19]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation_Period#National_...

Of course, the EU functions better since it has its funding sorted out, whereas the executive under the Confederation more or less begged for money every year and did not usually get its requested allocation.

gjsman-10005y ago

They don't have much similarities right now, that's agreed. However, I still think it's interesting because imagine if US States retained their sovereignty and the ability to secede at the US Founding. We might have ended up with something much closer to the EU today.

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