United States of Europe: Desired State for the European Union or Federalistic Utopia?

Abstract: Due to the current return of federal aspirations among European politicians in relation to the current economic crisis and integration dead end, this thesis is interested in examining if the United States of Europe, meaning a federal union of the Member States of the European Union (EU), would be a desired state of integration or if it is still a federalistic utopia. Using the theoretical approach of federalism in combination with Critical Discourse Analysis we have analysed discourses by José Manuel Barroso and Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Guy Verhofstadt (prominent EU politicians) in an attempt to understand why the United States of Europe would be the necessary and most beneficial step to take in future integration processes. The analysis of the discourses by EU politicians showed that a federal Europe is beneficial since it will give the opportunity for the EU to become more powerful on the international stage and better the decision-making. It will also allow more democracy and more participation for the citizens in the political sphere. However, there are also proponents of the idea that a federal Europe is and remains a utopia: nationalist and populist extreme right parties which are overall very popular in Europe at the moment. We have discussed the specific case of the Front National and a discourse by its leader Marine Le Pen using the theoretical approaches of ethnosymbolism and banal nationalism combined with Critical Discourse Analysis. This part showed that a federal Europe is still very much utopian, because citizens are still identifying with the national state and the ideas of parties such as the Front National are very much appealing: return to national protectionism, national identity and maintaining sovereignty. The fate of the European Union and its integration very much depends on what the citizens want for themselves.