| Chapter 1: | Introduction: Transition, Continuity, and Change |
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The inevitable conclusion was that there is an urgent need to fast-track the regional integration process as a basis of improving development performance in Africa. The formation of a union government was conceived as the first step in the process, leading invariably to the establishment of the United States of Africa.
The Union Government, therefore, will be a transitory political arrange-ment toward the United States of Africa. The Union Government will be in the form of a loose, confederal arrangement in which the member-states of the union cede some executive powers and functions to the confederal authority; this will gradually lead to a more federalized system in the United States of Africa. The Union Government proposal would alter the nature of the constitutive and regulative rules and the institutional framework of the AU. In revising the Constitutive Act, there will be a “Community Domain” where the Union Government will exercise exclusive responsibility on behalf of its members. Initially, this will be in the area of foreign policy, diplomacy, and trade negotiations, but will gradually extend to other areas of socioeconomic and political spheres.
The Union Government will have the semblance of a functioning state system with executive, legislative, and judicial authorities, as well as economic structures and institutions. The highest executive authority will be the Assembly of Heads of State and Government, which make broad decisions for the Union Government. The body shall have a full-time president who shall be the spokesperson of the government. The responsibility of the assembly will be to review the state of the union in the strategic areas of focus and, if necessary, summon special sessions to discuss and consider solutions to emergency situations on the continent. The next executive body will be the Executive Council, which shall prepare draft decisions in the key strategic areas for consideration by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government. Another executive organ will be the Permanent Representatives Council (PRC), which shall be composed of permanent representatives to the union and other plenipotentiaries of member states. The PRC will concentrate more on the preparations of the meetings for the Executive Council.