A United Regions of Europe is a goal that might just conceivably be obtainable within our lifetime; but we should not deceive ourselves concerning the size of the obstacles along that path. It is only natural that the individual should fear the prospect of finding himself organised from a human grouping wider than the one to which he has previously become accustomed. There is indeed much over which the watchful individual should remain alert to ensure that this evolution is enacted without trespass on his established rights as the citizen of an autonomous Region.

Others fear that an economically dominant Germany will retain its territory intact, and unified in its voting procedures, as a measure of ensuring that its influence over the rest of Europe will emerge as unchallengeable. Its interests might then be enforced, overriding all opposition from other quarters, so that the other cities of Europe will have their status relegated to being under the imperial subjugation of Berlin.

This is where I foresee the influence of the formerly British regions being asserted in defence of a truly democratic interpretation of the European constitution. The idea of Germany exercising a block vote to enforce Berlin's definition of European interests will not be tolerated, even if much political activity might be required to ensure that a free vote is always permitted on the floor of the European Parliament. Germany is as heterogeneously diverse as any of the other former nations, and it is the conflicting interests of such matters as agriculture versus industry, or of coastal interests versus those of the continental interior, which can ultimately be exploited to ensure that rival lobbies can be filled with nationals who may previously have displayed a determination to vote together.

The most frequent doubt to be expressed concerning the viability of a united Europe, (especially one that has been unified on the basis of its autonomous Regions), concerns the recent example of all the bloodshed in Yugoslavia. It is argued that Regionalization must inevitably be equated with Anarchy: that it throws one faction against the next, in their frantic efforts to assert their cultural dominance within the Region that they both inhabit. They might even ask, if I had to choose between the two currently advocated proposals for the division of Bosnia, which might be the one that approximates closest to the one that I have in mind for a United Regions of Europe.

The drift of my reply concerning the terrible problems, as exemplified in Bosnia, is that they certainly exercise man's diplomatic ingenuity to devise a solution that might bring the bloodshed to an end, while at the same time respecting the justifiable expectations of all parties concerned. Ideally, within the United Regions of Europe that I envisage will ultimately emerge, all manner of minorities, where they constitute the majority within a population group that stands in excess of 500 thousand - which is admittedly an arbitrary figure for me to be taking - will have the right to determine the quality of life for that community, while respecting all divergences from their own cultural pattern that might exist within that fold.

The principle of free cultural expression, no matter how small the minority in our midst, is fundamental to the spirit of Regionalism, and steps should always be taken by a majority to ensure that such freedom endures. It is the rich diversity within the midst of any Region that both heightens and broadens its cultural scope. Tolerance is not only humane, but it is also rewarding.

Shifting the example under consideration from Bosnia to Wessex, we might hypothesise the situation of a West Indian (or Pakistani) community, on finding itself in excess of the 500 thousand population mark, and featuring as the majority within a certain district of (let us say) Bristol, then it would have the right to set up its own institutions to control the quality of life within that district. This would not involve its secession from Wessex, but merely its right to regulate its own way of life, alongside all other Wessex communities, and to find itself properly represented within their institutions of government.

So I must conclude that the Vance/Owen proposals came the closest to implementing Regionalist aspirations for Bosnia. The idea of carving it up into ethnic Regions, wherein the minority cultures could be expelled, cannot be endorsed in spirit, even if (as a pragmatic solution) it is all that anyone can hope to implement.

Those in Western Europe who are inspired by the concept of a future United Regions of Europe should not despair from observing the fate of Bosnia. Terrible problems are perhaps even the necessary preliminary to inspirational solutions. Prompted by the bloodshed in central Europe we must remain hopeful that Westerners will eventually feel inspired to make the necessary sacrifices to bring Eastern Europeans into the same political fold as themselves, on a realisation that anarchy in the east of the continent will spread to the west, unless the substance of our own relative stability, (both in economic and political terms), can be offered them in institutionalised form with an invitation that they should participate with us in this creation of a United Europe.