Larry D. Lauer

During Chautauqua Institution’s focus on Europe this summer, Ulrike Guerot, Director of the European Democracy Lab in Berlin, suggested that the EU should function much like a “united states of Europe.”

Dr. Guerot went so far as to suggest that United States of America’s “republic” could actually be a model for Europe. Each European country could elect representatives to go to Brussels specifically to make laws and regulations that insure the development of the EU into a solid economic and political power. She thinks achieving economic unity, and at least some measure of political compromise, is the only way to prevent future wars.

Just as in the US, she expects tensions would exist between the rights of each country and the collective needs of the EU. She also recognizes that the kind of extreme polarization which developed in the US also exists in the EU. But just as in the US, she argues this can be tolerated for a while, and addressed over time.

Many at Chautauqua found Dr. Guerot’s “big idea” a bit far-fetched. But it is an idea that could lead to an EU that would see benefit in longterm support for collaborative university research, teaching, and international problem-solving.