Federal States of EU?

Yesterday I just had such discussion with my neighbor on the opposite side of hall. It is quite interesting for some of our discussion point.

1.) Could that be a better rescue package if EU would have been a federal states?

His answer is YES. The coordination of EU member states are quite weak now and he considers such weakness is the major reason why it takes so long for EU to reach a deal for the crisis. It is never be easy to reach an agreement that please all.

2.) How commom European might think of the idea of federal states?

History is a devil here. The general public might not happy with such ideas when continental Europe was torn aparted more than once. Particularly, the recent two world war was central-staged in European theater. Such trauma is not easy to mend. Economically speaking, even Greece today is still paying something they owe Germany during the war. (which was forced  upon! the story is quite astonishing and I am not sure of the source of such claim) I still recall that when Austria is not happy of Liechtenstein entering into the EEA agreement due to some territorial problems that is not fully solved in the Empire days....

This question is a bit side-tracked when I talk of the Netherlands. He personally favors Republic over the Monarchy democracy. He believes that Dutch people should have more public consensus mentality if they have been given a Republic system. Actually, when Taiwan was once ruled by Dutch, the Netherlands was back then a Republic system. The continuous wars just brought down such system and other country would "install"(well, that is pretty much his perspective) a king on the Dutch people....

3.) Do EU has the capacity to become a federal states?

This is more my own question. I still recall the day when I were in Norway and had the competition law class. Professor just point out the ECJ do not really have the capacity to handle all the cases and duly ruling is extremely important for business world. If it even comes to more general issues, it could still take forever to solve if the current EU system do not have the capacity to deal with that.

He suggests that it should starts from the core body of EU, if the core can function it right, then the expansion on the power can be progressed in schedule. Just like what they have done before in economic integration.

We will see, this idea/topic is truely interesting now.