On any long distance car trip with any small child, many older ones, and more than a few impatient adults, when traveling through areas they do not recognize one is seemingly always asked, and often asked repeatedly,  the perennial question, "Are we there yet?" In regards to a more united Europe, the answer is that no one knows for sure exactly where "there" is. Some will always say, "Let's stop here, this looks like just as good a place as any." Others will seemingly always want to keep driving, convinced that there is a more perfect, more ideal spot to pull over forever just around the next corner.

          The thing about time is that it is always moving. With geographical locations, despite the shifting geopolitical borders we like to imagine or ascribe to them, the land of European countries in one sense never goes anywhere (erosion and sand redistribution not withstanding). In regards to being a place, Europe has a definite location. Knowing where the "there" is of its physical location is not generally the problem. Time, believe it or not, also has a definite location. At a certain measurable distance in time, it will be this point tomorrow or next year relative to today's planetary position, in a predictable fashion. The question therefore is not "where" Europe will be physically tomorrow, for it will always be in roughly the same place relative to the movement of the rest of the Earth. There is a point to this, don't worry. The question is, where will Europeans be in relation to each other. 

          As mentioned, time is moving. The Earth is moving. Fiction about time travel usually overlooks the fact that everything in the Universe is always at a different location than it was previously. Yesterday was not here, it was somewhere else, in space as well as in time. Tomorrow will be somewhere else as well. Standing still is not an option. Governments give us the illusion that we can make tomorrow conform to today's rules and standards, and that indeed is their purpose, to provide a continuity of expectations that we will know what tomorrow might bring. They try to bring order to the chaos that we have no idea what will happen tomorrow. They have plans written down on what will happen tomorrow. These plans are very official looking, and often even have stamps on them.

          Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on what those plans say, things don't always turn out that way. Fortuitously, there are backup plans. If those plans don't work out either, they have very smart people on the payroll to make new plans up as we go along. That is not exactly ideal, from an expectational point of view, making things up as we go along, and is hardly suppose to be the province of governments. They do have after all, usually very large impressive buildings, often designed to be very reassuringly stoic and historical looking, and have very many sets of rules going back ages, all to keep us from having to (and to prevent us from) simply making new plans up as we go along.

          Governments are supposed to, figuratively speaking, be keeping us all on the same page. If tomorrow is not static and can never be, if it is always different and unpredictable, their roles are to keep us all moving in step together like a herd. The term "herd" usually has negative connotations, like sheep and cattle for instance, so for those who prefer to think of the role of government as promoting individual strength and independence, lets say a herd of moose or buffalo (bison). Regardless, we are all supposed to stay together relative to where we are now as we walk toward that new pasture called the "future". We cannot predict what we will find there, or what the terrain will become, but it is thought that if we can stick together relative to where we are now, stay in place or in formation, we can impose today's order upon whatever may lie over the next hill.

          New governments or new governmental orders can upset that formation. We are more apt to step on each others toes or get trampled on because we are not sure of our places, and as always, everyone sees in them the chance to move to the front of the pack both to get a better view, more room to maneuver ahead, and not be downwind from everyone else. Being in the front is much nicer. Being one of the few in the lead is even better, since if you can get the others there to turn with you, you can take the rest anywhere you might wish to go.

          Returning to where I began, many are not sure where Europe ought to go. Some don't believe there are better pastures and want always to stop right here. Others in the lead know their jobs are to keep the pack moving, that they only can be in the lead while the rest are on the move, and are helped by the fact that staying too long or moving too slowly is never an option, and leads only to extinction. Moving too slowly at the front means risking getting trampled on by those behind. Moving too quickly at the front risks separating too much from the others with those behind being able to say "Screw that" before turning and going their own way, and making those previously in the front have to find a place further back if they wish to go with the rest at all. 

          That is the challenge European integration faces in the future. How to keep moving as a pack together, moving in relation to each other, without having those who lead the integration get too far ahead of the others that the others would cease to wish to follow on that path to better integration, or risk losing the idea of better integration completely to those who would wish to move Europe in a different direction altogether. At the very heart of the debate is where is the "there". Where should Europe be in the future. If standing still for too long is never an option and the future must always be somewhere else, what form should it take?

          Getting to be able to discuss rationally how to modify their governments peacefully into a different form in the future is a marked step of evolution. Those in power throughout history knew the best way to stay in power was to never risk changing the government, never risk having people unsure of their places, and most of all, always keeping themselves in the front of the pack. When given the chance, many or most others would like to lead, or at least move to the front of the pack. And the walls present governments always sought to set up to prevent such debate are formidable. In the U.K. there is a law still on the books (at least as recently as 2003) condemning merely openly advocating replacing the monarchy with a republic as a treasonous felony.(1) Many other governments around the world, including the United States, could using only present laws always if they so chose interpret working toward establishing any supranational governmental organization such as the United Nations, or what some in Europe might want to see as a European nation state, as treason, also punishable by death, or life in prison if the death penalty is not allowed. To have gotten away from that past, which is only as far behind as we or current public opinion presently wish to interpret it to be, to be talking generally without fear openly as to what better form of government people ought to be governed by in the future and how best to proceed now toward creating such a government, is progress indeed.

          While it is comforting and egalitarian to throw about such words as "evolution" and "enlightened", the question is why are we really able to discuss such things more freely now? Why is it relatively suddenly now o.k. to ask the same questions which only a 100 years ago or less in most places, and in many countries still today, you would literally lose your head over or risk considerable jail time, with such questions regarding how to replace your current governmental system with a better one?

          The answer to that is two-fold in my opinion. The only time people are really allowed to discuss openly improving upon their governments forms are when their present systems clearly are not working, and those in control currently allow or wish such discussions to take place. In regards to the current system in Europe not working, sovereign nation states in Europe free to attack each other at will with no long lasting repercussions other than human lives lost, property damage, environmental damage, but other than that, no long lasting legal problems. Seemingly, a country could just say "Oops, sorry", and a few decades later it all would be behind, and countries could continue on with each other, pretty much business as usual. With two World Wars which brought the continent close to ruin, simply being free to attack each other whenever one country wished was now considered “not a good thing” and much more of a long lasting, if not permanent, potential nuisance than it was before.

          I must take a moment to mention that this idea of diminishing the likelihood of war as being “a good thing” is not a sudden development. It is unfair to say that any country or region necessarily saw war as a good thing, though many did and do see it as potentially extremely profitable. Peace treaties, and later formal organizations such as the League of Nations and the United Nations sought to be instruments of keeping the peace. The problem with all such treaties and organizations is that they have never, and not foreseeably will in the future, seriously undermined the "rights" or abilities of nations to attack each other in principle or in fact, and have never been a guarantee against larger countries that would choose not to follow such agreements, even after signing on to them. Similar such treaties and prior organizational structures did not prevent the world wars, and indeed if anything, made them far more damaging and organized to include other countries which had no real vested interests in them.

          This is one of the needs behind such allowing of more open talk of better international organizational structures, and of how to better integrate Europe politically and economically to prevent such histories from repeating themselves. Another factor is that the herd is getting antsy. They are used to moving faster now and go longer without wanting to rest. This can take them to more possible destinations in shorter timeframes with less degree to steer or stop them once they get moving, and make predicting safer courses much more difficult. In the automobile trip analogy, any rest stop now is a rare opportunity to recheck and fine tune the machine. Not doing so is no longer an option, and is the only way to prevent a blowout at much greater speeds than one ever had to travel at before. 

          This time of relative peace and stability between the countries of Europe, many in their governments see as the best chance they have had in a long time to make such repairs and modifications since they do not know how long and how far it will be before they have as good an opportunity to pause and do so again. How long this “let a 1000 flowers bloom”(2) attitude will last in regards to more open and free talk of revising and rethinking how they govern themselves is unclear. Once Europe finds its footing, it may commit itself toward that road uncompromisingly for generations to come, and leave all talk about changing or rethinking it or talk against it as heresy. Or the opposite may happen. With economic and social progress being forced constantly to try to keep up with technological advances, Europe or humanity as a whole, may ideally design a governmental machine which is intended to be modified without ever stopping, for we might never get those rest stops or chances to idly graze about, take in the scenery, and mull over any number of possible directions we might wish to take. 

          Planning ahead for a system designed to include being able to make up or remake the governmental structures themselves quickly as need be as we go along rather than set anything again to stone, should become a real viable alternative to ever closing the debate or settling on any structures which time will now inevitably only weaken and weather far faster than ever before. Rather than trying to keep the herd moving in lockstep, instead to give more room between to move around within it, to provide more flexibility to alter the formations as we move about, leaving it less likely for others to be trampled on, or never to advance to their abilities to reach the front of the herd if they are strongest for being locked in a box behind others moving more slowly in closer groupings. Since stopping for long if at all is becoming ever more difficult, and not being able to change direction completely is all but certain to take us over the next cliff lying ahead of the present course, the only model which will keep us safe at the higher speeds the future demands we must travel, means one that forces keeping the debates always open about constantly rethinking it. 

          The human herd is strong now, and anyone who tries to slow it down will most certainly be trampled to death. The European groups, Americans, Africans, Asians, and so on, are all beginning to synchronize their movements and to move in concert with one another so as not to collide so often. Where we are headed to is anyone’s guess. We may all charge off a cliff like lemmings, or we might find newer larger pastures to accommodate our increasing abilities, speed, and range. Only one thing is certain in my opinion. We are bleeding the present pasture dry and most often we prefer only to run in circles where we believe it is safe. The more debate we have, the longer we keep such a debate open, the more voices we listen to, the greater the chance some safer way will become clearer than others as the way to go, and might actually lead us somewhere away from the cliffs and dangers all around our present pasture, which we will less and less be able to avoid, the faster and faster we will move ever more.