EDITORIAL: “The unanimity problem,” by Charlemagne, The Economist, 28 June 2008, p. 60.

Key bit: “Devout federalists have their answer: unanimity is the enemy of progress in an EU of 27 countries”—read, states.

The ultimate fix is proposed: same-day popular voting in all states. But The Economist says a “large majority of national governments are just not ready for that.”

Not only is the EU behind the United States curve, it won’t be catching up any time soon. Granted, we took roughly a century and a bloody Civil War to get over the concept of states just not being “ready for that.”

The EU, past the whole war concept, will simply have to muddle through. But clearly, it is neither a superstate now nor was it ever the first one.