LONDON (AFX) - The European Union is set to develop into a federation of nation states, Joschka Fischer, Germany's foreign minister, said in an interview in the Financial Times.
"I would dare to prophesy that things will go this way. Certainly, not without crises or problems, but the pressure is in that direction," the Green party member predicted.
Fischer said such a federation seems the only effective way to handle a European Union with up to 27 member states once its expected enlargement gets under way from 2004.
He told the Financial Times: "We have three possibilities - intergovernmentalism; federalism; or a federation of nation states. In the light of experience, it would seem advisable to seek the third option as our next step even if the second has my full sympathy."