After 43 years of separate existence, Federal Union, the UK section of the UEF, finally reunited with its world federalist equivalent, the Association...

After 43 years of separate existence, Federal Union, the UK section of the UEF, finally reunited with its world federalist equivalent, the Association of World Federalists. The AWF had been founded by members of Federal Union back in 1965.

Negotiations over the reunification had been going on all summer, and their culmination was a meeting held in London on Saturday 6 September at which the reunification was agreed (with only one dissenting voice).

The case for reunification was partly practical and partly political. The practical argument was simple: neither Federal Union nor the AWF was a large and strong organisation so there would be benefits in joint activities in the future. The political argument rested on the realisation that many global problems could not be solved without a coherent European involvement, and conversely that many European problems could only be solved at the global level.

For example, the world financial crisis must lead somehow to a decline in the value of the US dollar. This can either be achieved by a crash, or alternatively by a global agreement: at present, the eurozone would find it very hard to take part in such a global agreement because the institutional arrangements for its external representation are still undefined. If they cannot be defined properly, the risk of a catastrophic crash grows much stronger.

Climate change is another example, where the establishment of workable institutions depends crucially on the European experience of federalism. The Europeans will only get the serious efforts to deal with the threat that they seek if they can persuade America, China and India to join them, which means in turn that they must propose a scheme that ensures effectiveness and accountability (and we all know what that means).

The argument against reunification was that European and world federalism were conceptually very different: the former was treading a known path whereas the latter was a step into the unknown. It is certainly true that federalism in Europe now appears solid and reliable, in contrast to much of what is discussed for the global level, but most Federal Union and AWF members present agreed that what their ideas had in common was much stronger than what divided them. (It might also be added that Federal Union itself has never confined itself only to European federalist issues, in any case).

The political debate was followed by a business session in which the terms of the reunification were agreed. The statutes of the new organisation are based on the former statutes of Federal Union, although with specific posts for Deputy Chairs to make sure that neither European nor world federalism is neglected in the future workplan. Elections for a new committee will be held at an AGM in March 2009: until then, the organisation will be led by a committee composed of all the existing members of the two previous committees. The organisation will preserve the name Federal Union, which it first adopted in 1938, and will be a member organisation of both the UEF and the WFM.