One of the chief benefits of
having an empire-scale union of states is the sway, or influence, abroad that
comes with strength of numbers. Dwarfing the foreign-policy of a state
government, and even of an informal bloc of a few states plus others outside
the union, an empire-scale united-policy enacted to influence other countries can
make the delegation of the additional governmental sovereignty to the federal
level worth losing some state power abroad. I contend that this lesson can be gained
by examining the European-Russian relation during the month of May in 2025.
On May 14, 2025, the E.U. “agreed
to impose a new round of sanctions against Russia, threatening to slap on
another one if the country continues to refuse the 30-day unconditional
ceasefire proposed by the White House and the ‘Coalition of the Willing’.”[1]
The White House refers to the U.S., another empire-scale union of states, but
the “coalition” is a more nebulous construction; it consisted of three E.U.
states plus Britain, which had seceded from the E.U. and was thus separate. One
of those states, Germany, threatened Russia with immediate sanctions only to
see Putin continue his military invasion of Ukraine. When a person’s “line in
the sand” is so easily and quickly crossed, that person should re-evaluate one’s
own vantage-point for what it is. Even a small bloc of states plus a former
state is not sufficient to stop a Russian bear in its tracks. It is no
accident, therefore, that the E.U. lost little time in announcing its own
sanctions against Russia. The lesson is that the state leaders should have put
the E.U. commission in the driver’s seat in the first place, rather than
demonstrate the need for collective action that the E.U. could provide.
Macron of the E.U. state of
France said on May 12, 2025 that an “unconditional ceasefire is not preceded by
negotiations” but he could do little to back up that statement, given that
Putin had just dismissed an immediate unconditional ceasefire without paying
any price.[2]
That an informal coalition, or bloc, had “previously demanded a full ceasefire
a precondition to starting negotiations” meant nothing to Putin.[3]
Continuing to make military progress on the ground in Ukraine, he had no
incentive to respond to the bloc, but to the extent that Russia could suffer
from sanctions from the E.U., Putin would have more reason to take an ultimatum
seriously.
That the governors of three
E.U. states chose to exercise their retained power in foreign policy rather
than go through the Commission points to a vulnerability of the European Union
from foreign policy being a shared competency while the state governments hold
most of the governmental sovereignty in the union. It is very tempting to a
state leader to grab media attention by taking the lead in a foreign policy
that the E.U. could do with more power internationally.
There is also the conflict of
interest in a bottom-heavy federal system wherein state leaders resist
delegating enough authority to the federal level so it can function
effectively, especially with regard to international relations. The E.U. had a
foreign minister at the time, and a federal president, and yet three state
leaders decided to spearhead a push for Russia to agree to an immediate ceasefire
anyway. Their approach was doomed from the start because Russia could easily
dismiss the threats from a few states even though the U.S. was on board on an
immediate ceasefire.
So, it is problematic that
once the E.U. effectively took over from the bloc of a few states, the need for
the state level institutions to take a lesson and be willing to give the E.U.
more authority to make and enforce foreign policy, as by applying
qualified-majority voting to such policy, was not grasped in the public media
and discourse. Lest there be any doubt concerning the power of a small bloc of (large)
E.U. states, Dmitry Medvedev wrote on social media: “Macron, Metz, Starmer and
Tusk were supposed to discuss peace in Kyiv. Instead, they are blurting out
threats against Russia . . . You think that’s smart, eh? Shove these peace
plans up your pangender arses.”[4]
Ouch! I submit that the E.U. announcing additional
sanctions would not be taken as the blurting out of threats was taken, in part
because of the much greater power of the E.U. vis á vis Russia. Macron,
Metz, and Tusk looked like the three musketeers, with Starmer as a former fourth,
relative to the E.U.’s institutions.
Unfortunately, the state level
of governance had held back those institutions from being able to leverage the “power
in numbers” in foreign policy that could otherwise be realized by the Commission
with oversight by the Parliament and the European Court of Justice, and with a
check by the involvement of the states at the federal level. Too much of a
check by the latter, including taking the lead and ignoring the shared
competency of the Commission, was detracting not only from a more perfect
union, but one that could have enough sway internationally to operate as a real
check on Russia as well as Israel.
Put another way, as the Trump
administration was warming up to Russia and Israel, the world could ill-afford
to have the Europeans resorting to informal blocs of a few E.U. states due to
institutional clutching of power at the state level and a lack of leadership
there for the good of the whole (E.U.) over state politicians’ self-interest
for power and stardom. The breakdown of the international order, with the UN
being politically impotent to stop Russia or Israel in their excessive aggression,
means that Europeans could ill-afford continuing to allow their state officials
to styme action at the E.U. level on the world stage.
Euroskeptics have feared the
advent of a huge “federal state” without realizing that hamstringing E.U.
institutions on competencies that are shared with the states only hurts the
European Union itself. In other words, compromising a federal system because
it is wrongly assumed that for such a system to exist (and thus that the E.U.’s
system has not been federal from the start), there must be a massive state at
the top, leaves Europe vulnerable to a real massive state—that of Russia.
This is not to say that Europe
must also have a massive state; ironically, that the E.U. has a federal system
enables there not to be a massive state covering the E.U.’s territory, for
dual-sovereignty can and should be balanced such that neither the federal nor
the state level dominates the whole federal system. In his book, Federal
Government, Ken Wheare denies that such a balance is necessary to an ongoing
and stable federal system of checks and balances. I disagree. Under his theory,
the federal level of the E.U. could gain so much authority that the state
governments are utterly dominated and still the federal system would work. I
disagree. Whereas the U.S. federalism could be better balanced by having the
states empowered to act as a check on the federal institutions, E.U. federalism
could be better balanced by having the federal level gain additional competencies,
with the states benefitting from the resulting collective action while still
having enough sovereignty to check the federal institutions. Whereas the U.S.
could benefit by increasing the formal involvement of the state governments in
foreign policy in Washington, the E.U. could benefit by increasing the formal
involvement of the E.U.’s president and foreign minister in crafting and
enforcing foreign policy to defend Europe from aggressive powers abroad,
whether they are empires in themselves or sovereign states.
It is telling that a year
before Macron returned to his state capital of Paris empty-handed (just as Merz
headed back to Berlin empty-handed) after Putin had dismissed the state-level
demand for a ceasefire in Ukraine, Macron had given a major speech on the need
for Europe to defend itself. “In the next decade,” he had said, “the risk is
immense that [Europe] will be weakened, even relegated.”[5]
The clear conclusion for us in contrasting those two events is that the state
governments should formally allow the E.U. to take the lead in foreign policy
rather than have state leaders attempt to “steal the thunder” by charging out
in front as if by instinct with the federal officials tasked with foreign
policy only able to look on. Yes, Virginia, the E.U. does indeed have a federal
system, but this does not mean that transferring more governmental sovereignty
on foreign policy (and defense) to the federal level would necessarily turn Europe
into a federal state as Euroskeptics fear; the sort of federal consolidation
that has occurred over centuries in the U.S. can be avoided even as Europeans
lend greater balance to the E.U.’s federal system.
1. Jorge Liboreiro, “EU Agrees New Sanctions on Russia and Threatens More If Putin Refuses Ceasefire,” Euronews.com, 14 May 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Shaun Walker, “Vladimir Putin Rejects Ceasefire Ultimatum Proposed by European Leaders,” The Guardian, May 10, 2025.
5. Clea Caulcutt, “Macron Warns Europe ‘Can Die’ in Alarmist Speech on Protectionism, Geopolitical Threats,” Politico.com, April 25, 2024.
