THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE: A 2035 SCENARIO
What would actually have to happen for Europe to become one power — and what would it cost?
Europe has spent decades asking whether it can become more united.
That may now be the wrong question.
The more consequential question is whether Europe can remain as politically fragmented as it is while the world around it becomes increasingly organised around continental power.
The European Union already possesses an economy of approximately $21.2 trillion, compared with about $30.8 trillion for the United States and $19.5 trillion for China in 2025. EU GDP per capita, however, remains dramatically below the American level: approximately $47,100 against $90,000. (World Bank Open Data)
This distinction matters.
Europe does not lack economic mass.
It lacks the same capacity to transform economic mass into strategic scale.
This is not an essay about creating European scale.
European scale already exists.
It is about organising it.
Imagine Europe in 2035.
Not a Europe in which France has ceased to be France, Italy has ceased to be Italy or Poland has surrendered its language, history and national identity.
Imagine something simultaneously more radical and more realistic:
a Europe in which nations remain culturally and politically alive, but a limited number of functions that only make sense at continental scale have become genuinely federal.
Defence.
Foreign policy.
Strategic infrastructure.
External borders.
Capital markets.
Trade.
Strategic energy infrastructure.
Critical technologies.
Certain forms of common borrowing and investment.
A European Treasury exists for those federal responsibilities.
A European executive can act within them.
A European Parliament legislates within them.
A chamber representing the states protects the federal balance.
National parliaments remain powerful.