Translated by Ionuț -Eugen -Radu SAVA [619009]

Translated by Ionuț -Eugen -Radu SAVA
Babeș -Bolyai University, Cluj -Napoca
Faculty of European Stud ies.
RISE Engleză II, grupa 2

UNITED STATES OF EUROPE. ECONOMIC ASPECT
Mihail MANOILESCU

Amongst utopias which can become realities one day, none is more seductive than
that of the United States of Europe.
The rationalist and symmetric spirit of Europeans is easily conquered by th e idea of a
European federation which would amount front to front with the federation of North America,
bringing the old continent a resurgent force.
Because it is not enough to federate the peoples of Europe in order to meet all of a
sudden all the uniq ue conditions in history that have been met in America, to ensure its
prosperity beyond equal, this is a matter that seems to overshadow doubts over the
enthusiastic supporters of the European United States idea.
But it is useless and impossible to get i nto researching everything what undefeated
weight assumes within the construction of European idealism.
Let us now achieve one single aspect which rises particular concerns: the economic
aspect.
***
The achievement of a European economic unity has been projected upon two paths.
One of them is represented by the European customs union and the other is the United States
of Europe.
The customs union path is, in general, more favorable than that of a political fusion.
In reality, this is a solution infinite less bold than the idea of federalization in one single
European state and, on the other hand, from the stand point of the economic forces of
production and their rationing, seems that it offers the same advantages as federalization.
The European custom s union represents the abdication of national sovereignty only
upon a single plan of the economic activity. Federalization means the total abdication from
anything with regards to the national economic freedom.

Translated by Ionuț -Eugen -Radu SAVA
Babeș -Bolyai University, Cluj -Napoca
Faculty of European Stud ies.
RISE Engleză II, grupa 2

Therefore, the superficial observers, w illing to make comfortable compromises,
recommend the European customs union as a transitory stage for accomplishing the supreme
ideal, which is federalization.
***
But what does the European customs union mean? The total renunciation of any
industrializa tion claim on behalf of those countries which lag behind economically.
By the means of an European customs union, the free competition between the
industries establish a rough natural selection, strengthening those strong holding dominating
positions an d sacrificing those the beginners and the weak.
Within a customs union, countries like Russia, Romania or the Balkan Peninsula are
condemned to survive out of the poor cultivation of cereals, feeding themselves from
everything produced superiorly by the b ig industrial countries: England, Germany etc. Within
such a system, the contrast between the wealth of industrialized countries and the poverty of
the agricultural countries would only serve to widen further.
For their renunciation to their right to enr ich through industry, agricultural countries
would not receive any compensation because their entire economy would continue to remain
separate from those of industrial countries. The only common point amongst them would be
the free movement of good beyond the barriers of the abolished customs.
When forty states which compose today the great republic of North America gave up
their independence, each one of them had sacrificed a certain evolution which would have
given them direct advantages of protectionist industrial policy.
This sacrifice although has found a brilliant compensation by the means that every
isolated state could enjoy the benefits of the great capitalist organism that the United States
represent.
Each of the former states entered with an ab solute right to the division of the
advantages of a vast railway system laid down on a large continental outline. Every one of
them felt helped by the American ensemble of the financial and monetary. Each one of them
has been benefitting by the influx of c apital and by the cheapening of the credits offered by
the important American finance centers. They took advantage of the right placements of
public duties which result from a fiscal system applied to a big country [big as a continent].
Every state perform ed the economics of administrative spending and, moreover, the

Translated by Ionuț -Eugen -Radu SAVA
Babeș -Bolyai University, Cluj -Napoca
Faculty of European Stud ies.
RISE Engleză II, grupa 2

economics of military expenditure. All in all result from a certain unification on such a huge
scale. And, finally, every state had found itself pushed towards prosperity by the means of the
common pressure of the entire organism dominated by a unique rhythm of development.
Such a whole fusion cannot even be compared to the unification realized on a single
scale, that of the movement of goods, as customs unions get it done. Within a European
customs union, each country gold still its particular and defective system of communications;
each remains marginalized when it comes to capital supply on the internal market, suffering
from the local miseries which can paralyze the entire economic life; e ach country remains
with its own particular monetary system exposed to any failure; each carries on individually
its fiscal duties, which is very unequally distributed today among different countries; finally,
each country has to support the duty of an cos tly administration and more than that of those
inseparable costs of national defense.
***
In this general status quo intervenes a unique change: the freedom of goods. The
freedom of movement represents yet an advantage only for those industrialized state s and on
the contrary represents an immense disadvantage for agricultural states in their continuous
path of industrialization .
These last ["unfortunate"] mentioned states are those who are up next to pay with
"their skin" towards accomplishing the ideal beauty. Without gaining any advantage on
behalf of a true and full unification in the economic and political field, they are condemned to
give up their most secure mean of enrichment, which is industrialization, at least to the
modest limit of internal con sumers satisfaction. These states make therefore a real and
tangible sacrifice in order to win only an illusory advantage.
Here is why, albeit our paradoxical conclusion, we prefer the alternative of the United
States of Europe instead of a solution, in a ppearance harmless, but in reality much more
dangerous of an customs union.
The solution of a United States may be utopian, from the stand point of the
possibilities of implementing it, but this is in fact logic and rational.
The solution of the customs union may seem more realist towards the possibility of
concretization, but it is absurd because it claims, from a majority of today's Europe's states, to
sacrifice without any equivalent.

Translated by Ionuț -Eugen -Radu SAVA
Babeș -Bolyai University, Cluj -Napoca
Faculty of European Stud ies.
RISE Engleză II, grupa 2

And so, the European customs union, far from being an intermedia te state which can
lead to the United States of Europe, would only be an evil experience. This experience would
compromise the idea of any European cooperation.
There are alternatives/solutions which do not have a sense unless they are conceived
and reali zed in their full length. Divided arbitrary in isolated measures, they [eg.
alternatives/solutions] constitute a danger. Therefore, if it's to choose between two utopias, at
least let us decide to pick the one which can bare victoriously the critic of rati onality.

(Published in Observatorul politic și social , Thursday 15 August, 1929, p. 1 -21)

1 Mihail Manoilescu (b. 1891, Tecuci; d. 30 December, 1950, Sighet Priso n) was a publicist,
economist, Foreign Affairs M inister and Romanian politican.

He serves as Romania's Foreign Affairs Minister in the summer of 1940. His economic ideas
have been intensively popularized and applied in South America.