On November 1, 2024, “All Saints
Day” in Roman Catholic Christianity, the E.U. announced that a peaceful
delegation of the elected representatives of the EU’s Parliament would be
travelling to Texas during the following week to “meet American counterparts,”
which is to say, a delegation of the elected representatives of the US’s House
of Representatives.[1] The
key word here is counterparts, for the European Parliament is indeed of
the same type of legislative body and at the same level in its federal system
as is the American House of Representatives.
Both legislative chambers consist
of elected representatives who are elected by E.U. and U.S. citizens. Although the
respective states are divided into districts, the representatives do not
represent the state governments or the states themselves. Just because the
state governments map out the districts does not mean that the elected representatives
to the federal chamber represent the states. In fact, every party in the
Parliament and the House consists of representatives from more than one state.
To insist that political parties exist only on the state level, whereas only
blocs or nebulous groups exist at the federal level is ideological nonsense
geared to “States’ Rights advocates” in the United States and “Euroskeptics” in
the European Union. It is significant that members of the European People’s Party
in the E.U. Parliament sit together, and the party has members from various
states, who, as stated above, do not represent their respective states, but,
rather, the E.U. citizens in federal legislative districts. The same is
true in the case of the U.S. House.
So it is fitting that a delegation
of the members of the E.U.’s Parliament would meet with members of the U.S.’s
House. “The inter-parliamentary meeting is usually an opportunity for lawmakers
from both sides of the Atlantic to exchange views of their legislative agenda
and priorities.”[2]
The parity implied here is correct, and thus obviates any ideological claim that
a state in one union is equivalent, or on the same political-system level as the
other union. In terms of geography alone, Texas and France, and Montana and
Germany, are both cases equivalencies. Similar equivalencies pertain to Arizona
and California, and Italy and Spain, respectively. In terms of population,
whereas many of the respective states of the two unions are in the tens of millions,
both unions are in the hundreds of millions. The two clusters evince the
qualitative (i.e., a jump, rather than an incremental change) as well as a quantitative
difference between the respective state and federal levels.
The E.U’s delegation was set to
be chaired by MEP Brando Benifei of the Socialists & Democrats party and
the U.S.’s delegation was to be chaired by Rep. Nathaniel Moran of the
Republican Party. That the possibility of a U.S. tariff on goods imported from
the E.U. was on the agenda, and the E.U.’s executive branch, the Commission,
has exclusive authority, or competency, on commercial law in the E.U. does not
mean that only economic issues would be discussed, as if the E.U. were a “trading
bloc.” The three pillars, or enumerated powers, of the E.U. extend beyond trade
and even economics to include social policy and justice, including human
rights, for example. The U.S. delegation could enquire of its counterpart whether
the recent electoral fraud in the prospective E.U. state of Georgia (not the
U.S. state of Georgia, even given the controversy in 2020!) adds to
foreign-agents law in significantly reducing Georgia’s chances of gaining
statehood. The E.U. delegation could in turn enquire as the viability of U.S.
elections, given the accusations in 2020 from within the United States.
In short, both the E.U. and U.S. have
federal systems in which governmental sovereignty is “dual,” which is to say
that although the respective states have both stated and residual domains of
authority, some of them was delegated to the federal institutions, which in
both unions comprise governments rather than only multilateral international
organizations. To be sure, an element of the latter has been retained in both
unions; specifically in the U.S. Senate and the E.U. Council, both of whose
members are polities (i.e., the states) rather than representatives of federal citizens.
In fact, the citizens have E.U. and U.S. passports, respectively. In general,
that the balance of governmental sovereignty is closer to the states in the
E.U. than in the U.S. does not mean that the two unions are not both cases of
modern (i.e., dual sovereignty) federalism, as distinct from confederalism, in
which all of the sovereignty resides with the state governments. In 1603, Althusius
distinguished between plena and non-plena federalism with this in
mind even though he modeled his theory of federalism on the Holy Roman Empire.
Federalism itself was originally confederal, and fit international alliances because
the members differed even in terms of the type of government they had. The
U.S., and then the E.U. en suite, mixed national and international
elements in what is now called modern federalism to distinguish it from
confederalism, which is still evinced in international alliances and
organizations such as the United Nations.
To conflate either the E.U. or U.S. with such alliances and
organizations is to commit a rather basic category mistake. Whether out of
ignorance of ideological fervor, such a mistake prevents the two federal unions
from looking at each other to gain insights so as to move towards more perfect
unions.
1. Peggy Corlin, “MEPs
Seek First Contact with Trump or Harris Regimes in Texas Next Week,” Euronews.com,
November 1, 2024.
2. Ibid.
