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Indeed, the creators of the euro envisioned it as an instrument to promote political union.

This much is true: When we created the euro, it wasn't possible to create a political union along with it. People weren't ready for that. But since then, they've grown more willing to go in that direction. It's a process, one that is sometimes laborious and sometimes slow. But it's important to keep the populations involved.

After choosing monetary union, further political union and workable governance in Europe was always going to be necessary.

A new state, if it wants to join the European Union, has to apply to become a member of the European Union like any state.

Europe has shown how government can be organised in a network. Its institutions both compete and co-operate and include a directly elected parliament that does not appoint the executive, independent judiciaries and a complex set of relationships between the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the Parliament.

'Federalism', in the context of political and media usage in Britain, has come to mean the creation and imposition of a European superstate, one centralised in Brussels.

Whatever the details of union may be, there's no doubt we need more policy coordination in Europe.

Unionization, as opposed to communism, presupposes the relation of employment; it is based upon the wage system and it recognizes fully and unreservedly the institution of private property and the right to investment profit.

The idea seems to be to use the next treaty talks to strike a grand bargain: Britain will be helpful to those states wishing to establish a fiscal union among themselves if, in exchange, we can amicably derogate from the aspects of the EU which we dislike.

I have specifically argued that we need to change our relationship with the European Union by fundamentally reforming not just our relationship but the European Union itself.