Looking much further ahead, we should wonder what will be the future political institutional framework of Europe. Immanuel Kant argued that, where countries are interdependent, institutions will continue to develop between them until a stable equilibrium is reached.
In his words, “a state of affairs… that can maintain itself automatically.” And Jean Monnet in his memoirs 35 years ago wrote: “Nobody can say today what will be the institutional framework of Europe tomorrow because the future changes, which will be fostered by today’s changes, are unpredictable.” In a long term historical perspective, Europe – which has invented the concept and the word of democracy – is called to complete the design of what it already calls a “Union”.