Federalism and Trans-boundary Regions

For Europe, the 19th and early 20th centuries was a period of defining national identities. Nationalism was particularly virulent on the Balkan, called Europe's gunpowder barrel, leading on June 28, 1914, to the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne in Sarajevo. This spark not only ignited the Balkan, but the explosion led to Europe's Urkatastrophe (seminal catastrophe).

Europe eventually learned the lesson after the Second World War. Alcide De Gasperi, Konrad Adenauer, and Robert Schumann were the architects of a European Community based on a common cultural and economic heritage. A good symbol is the Karlspreis, a medal named after Europe's founder, Charlemagne, and awarded in Aachen to persons for their efforts on behalf of European unification. Over the years, the European Union incorporated more and more countries that are represented in the European Parliament. Today the old borders still exist, but border checks are performed only at the so-called external frontiers with the European Union.

With European unification progressing, people nevertheless want to live their identity. They love their village, their town, their region, and their local dialect. Take the case of Bavaria as a grown historical region* being a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. Hamburg has a rich history and is proud to be a state in Germany too. Baden-Württemberg, on the contrary, initially had some difficulty finding its identity.
*This is true if one only considers the time after the Westphalian Peace Treaty that resettled the territorial map of Europe. Catholic Old Bavaria acquired the two Protestant Palatinas, the upper part is also called Franconia. A movement would like to create a new federal state of the same name.

Germany is lucky to have a naturally grown federal structure reflected by state boundaries. Other European countries have historical regions, too, like Scotland and Wales in the UK, Alsace and Brittany in France, Catalonia, and the Basque region in Spain, but these countries have strong centralized governments. 

In the European Union, there is a tendency to build regions that sometimes cross old national borders, as in the case of the Basque people.

Following the Hundred Years' War, the French kings deprived the local dukes of their power and centralized the governmental activities in Paris. The city is still the pivot of all activities in France. The other day Red Baron probed the train connection from Karlsruhe to Lille in case he had missed the bus at Karlsruhe station. The classical solution offered by the Deutsche Bahn Navigator was to take the Train à Grande Vitesse (TGV Est) from Karlsruhe to Paris and then the TGV Nord from Paris to Lille. When I forced the application to show the more direct connection Karlsruhe - Luxemburg - Lille, I only saved on money but not on travel time.

France had started to decentralize its administration as early as 1955, dreating 22 regions on the mainland, but only in 1982 were regional parliaments formed, having limited competence.

The "classical" 22 regions in France (©Plavius, Wikipedia)

However, it turned out that with these 22 regions, the administrative expense was still too high. So lately, the National Assembly passed a law reducing the number of regions from 22 to only 14. That the culturally homogeneous Alsace was put together with Lorraine already found great resistance among the Alsatians, but in the latest proposal, the new region should incorporate the Champagne too. Will the beer and wine-drinking Alsace welcome Champagne?

In the meantime, the European Union patronizes transboundary cooperation based on historical structures. A typical example is the Trinational Metropolitan Region on the Upper Rhine.

The people on both sides of the river have never regarded the Rhine as a boundary but a waterway used conjointly. For centuries, speaking the same Alemannic dialect, they had been related by a common economic and cultural heritage until, starting in the 17th century, governments thought otherwise.

Matthaeus Merian's map of the upper Rhine region dated 1658

Map of the Trinational Metropolitan Region on the Upper Rhine
turned by ninety degrees for easy comparison with the historical map above.

May the French eventually create their regional structure. At present European ambitions are faster.

*