by Matthew Jackson

Created on: January 18, 2010   Last Updated: January 20, 2010

The creation of the European Union mirrors in many ways the creation of Canada. In pre-confederate Canada, a group of self governing British Colonies merged for strategic economic, political and military improvements.[1] There were many issues, such as regionalism between the Atlantic Provinces and Ontario, as well as language barriers between Quebec and the rest of the colonies that were predominantly Anglophone.

Europe faces similar challenges in the creation of the European Union. Sovereignty, regionalism and language, all present formidable barriers to integration in Europe, as they did in Canada.[2] Furthermore the goals of European integration are also for strategic economic, political and military gains.

The question is; why did Canada succeed in confederation, and Europe is unable to do so? There are three main differences between the creation of Canada and the development of the European Union. Firstly, The European Union has no constitution; secondly, the European Union is too decentralised; and thirdly, the European Parliament is ineffective.

The first issue with the development of the European Union is that it has no central government. In order to understand why a central government would be important in Europe, it is important to understand the difference between federalism and con-federalism. 

Federalism is defined by Dickerson and Flanagan as, “a system of government in which sovereignty is divided between a central government and several provincial or state governments.”

On the other hand, Confederation is defined as, “a federal system of government in which sovereign constituent governments create a central government but the balance of power remains with constituent governments. “[3] 

Like Canada, the European Union is a confederation. Each national government makes the final decision, and the Central European government has little to no actual power. Unlike Canada, the European Union functions as a con-federal state. 

When the fathers of confederation were writing the constitution, they added several clauses which would allow the central, federal, government to have power over many items that were officially under provincial jurisdiction.[4]  This means that the federal government is able to make decisions that are beneficial to Canada as a whole, as opposed to just one province.

In Europe this is not the case. National governments hold more power than the European Parliament and therefore act

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