''The United States of Europe, A Eurotopia?'' is a plan, advanced in 1992 by the

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

beer brewer and

pro-European Pro-Europeanism, sometimes called European Unionism, is a political position that favours European integration and membership of the European Union (EU).Krisztina Arató, Petr Kaniok (editors). ''Euroscepticism and European Integration''. Pol ...

political activist

Freddy Heineken Alfred Henry Heineken (4 November 1923 – 3 January 2002) was a Dutch businessman for Heineken International, the brewing company created in 1864 by his grandfather Gerard Adriaan Heineken in Amsterdam. He served as chairman of the board of di ...

. He proposes a federal

United States of Europe A federal Europe, also referred to as the United States of Europe (USE) or a European federation, is a hypothetical scenario of European integration leading to the formation of a sovereign superstate (similar to the United States of America), ...

, in which larger European countries break into a number of smaller, more ethnically and linguistically homogeneous states.

The idea

The plan gives a division of Europe in

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

s. Heineken went for advice on the division to

Henk Wesseling Henk Wesseling (6 August 1937 – 18 August 2018) was a Dutch historian. He was a professor of contemporary history at Leiden University, former rector of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study between 1995 and 2002. Biography Wesselin ...

, who was Professor of History at the

University of Leiden Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange as a Protestant institution, it holds the distinction of being the oldest university in the Neth ...

. The designs from the plan were left to the Leiden historian Wim van den Doel. Eurotopia takes ethnic sensitivities into account, to cause the least possible amount of friction. The basic idea is a Europe that is completely composed of states with roughly 5 to 10 million citizens. According to Heineken, the absence of a powerful state would lead to a chance of more stability, equality and peace. While under the motto of small is beautiful, administration in the states could be more efficient.

References

1992 non-fiction books Political books {{Europe-poli-book-stub