The E.U.’s Borders Held Hostage by the State Veto

With E.U. states like Germany, Austria and Poland becoming increasingly active in patrolling their respective borders at the expense of the Schengen Agreement, it makes sense that the proposed E.U. budget announced in July, 2025 includes more money to protect the E.U.’s borders from illegal crossings. This is important because reinstituting controls on the borders of states contributes toward the visual of the E.U. coming apart geographically. Such a set-back may be worse for the E.U. than the secession of Britain was; in fact, letting that state go arguably strengthened the Union because the British government consistently refused to admit that the E.U. is more than a network of countries that the UK happened to belong to, which was the view of the former governor, David Cameron.

Out of the €74 billion in the proposed E.U. budget of President Von der Leyen “earmarked in the MFF to ‘make Europe safer and more secure,’ €26 billion” would “be dedicated to migration management, including issues related to reception of asylum seekers and other non-border related issues.”[1] In the existing 2021-2027 budget, €25 billion in total went to migration, with €14 billion for border management and €11 billion to asylum reception and integration.[2]

With the federal budgets covering so many years, reforms allowing for easier fast-tracking of proposals to augment a current budget may be advisable in the face of some states effectively shedding the open-state-borders Schengen Agreement. Additionally, the stipulation that any state government can veto a proposed federal budget could be revisited, as states differ on how serious infractions are at their respective borders and thus on the merit of increasing federal spending so the concerned states might pull back and revert to the Schengen Agreement, for claims of emergency by the activated state governments have been specious, and perhaps even outright lies.

That unanimity would be needed to pass the proposed federal budget, which in turn would hopefully strengthen the E.U.’s borders sufficiently that certain state governors could relax and withdraw their forces at their respective state borders ignores the political leverage that some state governors have exploited by using their respective vetoes at the federal level. A certain level of maturity all around is requisite to having the veto-mechanism with the understanding that it is to be used only when a state’s interests would likely be vitally impaired with the passage of a piece of legislation. Without such maturity, all kinds of dysfunctional politics and dogmatic obstacles can be expected in the European Council and the Council of the E.U. as the Commission and the Parliament look on in utter disbelief.

Perhaps it is an overstatement to say that a potential implosion of the E.U. from within could be allowed to run its course because of a refusal to exculpate the principle of unanimity, and thus the state veto, from the involvement of the state governments at the federal level. To exclaim, “The E.U. is NOT a federation!” as a kind of instinctual urge is not a retort; rather, it is the sort of stubborn oblique denial that pushes off reform that could save the Union. That some state governments subject to the Schengen Agreement were already using the emergency clause inappropriately when President Von der Leyen released the Commission’s upcoming budget for the E.U. is witness enough that the stubborn insistence by some governors to retain the state veto power at the federal (or Union) level has prevented the E.U. from being able to adequately enforce and fulfill its own competencies (i.e., enumerated powers). 

Is it not unethical to say, here is a power for you but we’re going to stop you along the way from being able to carry it out sufficiently even though it is your power? Is that not unfair, as well as counter-productive for the Union? Or are the circumscribed, petty interests of the parts greater than the interest of the whole where the benefits of collective action could otherwise be realized?

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1. Vincenzo Genovese and Eleonora Vasques, “Lion’s Share of Tripled EU Migration Budget Aimed at Border Management,” Euronews.com, July 18, 2025.
2, Ibid.

Negotiating from Weakness: The Plight of the European Union

To go to much effort to construct an economy on the scale of an empire only to refer instead to the economies within such a union, whether the E.U. or U.S. is to pay excessive homage to an ideology that can be termed Euroskeptic and anti-federalist, respectively. To refer to economies in one union and the economy in the other is just one means by which an ideology can distort a person’s reasoning and perception without the person being conscious of the underlying logical inconsistency. Such an inconsistency is incurred not only in “having it both ways” in the E.U. being a common market even as the states are referred to as economies even though many share a currency and thus a central bank, but also in referring to the federal system as if it were a mere “bloc,” or “network.”  In all of these cases of ideological word-games, the E.U. itself is minimized and thus implicitly marginalized from within. With Russia invading Ukraine and Israel eviscerating the Muslim residents of Gaza, self-marginalization for ideological purposes is indeed costly. Even referring to the federal official who is in charge of foreign policy as a “high representative” is implicitly denigrating and thus counter-productive to the E.U. being able to stand up to Putin and even Netanyahu in 2025.

The full essay is at "Negotiating from Weakness."

E.U. President Von der Leyen Survives A No-Confidence Vote

Falling short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass on July 10, 2025, the no-confidence vote on President Von der Leyen of the Commission in the E.U.’s parliament mustered only 175 representatives in favor while 360 voted against the motion and 18 abstained. Although commentators discussed whether the president was weakened anyway, a more important matter relates to the politics of the vote as distinct from the Parliament’s institutional interests as they relate to the Commission and the European Council. I contend that the Parliament, which represents E.U. citizens, has a vital interest that is vital to the E.U. itself in maintaining a balance between the collective power of the representatives of the citizenry and the power the state governments at the federal level. Parties making deals with Von der Leyen on policy positions undercut the vote as a means of holding the Commission to maintaining that balance.

For example, the Socialists and Democrats Party “extracted a pledge on the next long term budget in exchange for their support.”[1] The right-wing Patriots for Europe Party and Europe of Sovereign Nations Party both voted in favor of removing Von der Leyen, but certainly not because she left made a deal with the states to sidestep the Parliament on certain matters of policy, for those parties favor more power for the state governments at the federal level. In fact, those parties even deny that there is a federal level! Therefore, we cannot assume that the vote of no-confidence was on the matter of the Commission siding with the state governments to marginalize the Parliament.

The Commission under Von der Leyen had “invoked Article 122 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) to set up SAFE which allows member states to directly approve a Commission proposal ‘if severe difficulties arise in the supply of certain products’ or if a member state is ‘seriously threatened with severe difficulties caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences beyond its control.’”[2] Because the Commission and the state governments were able to set up a federal defense-loan program without the approval of the European Parliament, and thus the citizens of the E.U., Roberta Metsola, the head of the Parliament, wrote to Von der Leyen of the “deep concern” in among the representatives that excluding the Parliament meant “putting at risk democratic legitimacy by undermining Parliament’s legislative and scrutiny functions.”[3] The democratic legitimacy of the federal level depends on the involvement of the Parliament, as it is the only institution representing E.U. citizens directly, rather than state governments, which have their own institutional interests even apart from state residents.

It is highly significant that Metsola “stressed that ‘the European Parliament is not questioning the merits of this proposal for a regulation’.”[4] The objection was not one of policy; rather, the concern was based on the democratic viability and overall balance of the E.U. itself as a federal system. By involving policy in the deal-making leading up to the censure vote, certain political parties in the Parliament undercut that institution’s interest in protecting itself against the Commission giving too much power to the state governments at the federal level. The Socialists should not have extracted a political gain from Von der Leyen, and the Green Party members should not have voted on the basis of how much Von der Leyen had prioritized environmental policy. Instead, the parties apprehensive about the Parliament having been circumvented by the state governments and the Commission should have voted to offset the state-rights ideology of the far-right parties in the Parliament. Had this been done, the next Commission would have been very cautious about circumventing the voice of the people by making deals with the governors of the several states. 

Generally speaking, protecting the viability of the federal system itself, including the checks and balances at the federal level, does not get done by prioritizing political deals and even particular policies, as if the pushing for certain policies in the aggregate were tantamount to protecting the system of governance itself.

1. Jeremy Fleming-Jones, et al, “Von der Leyen’s EU Commission Survives Parliament Confidence Vote,” Euronews.com, July 10, 2025.
2. Alice Tidey, “MEPs Vote for Parliament to Sue Commission over €150 bn Defense Loan Programme,” Euronews.com, June 25, 2025.

3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

Russia Benefits from Flawed E.U. Federalism

In the E.U., the 27 state governments are able to wield a veto on most important policy proposals in the European Council. Expecting unanimity where not even consensus is enough is so utterly unrealistic at 27 that it may be time to reconsider whether the E.U. can afford such an easy (and tempting) means by which state governors can exploit the E.U. by essentially holding it hostage. To be sure, like the filibuster in the U.S. Senate, the veto in the European Council represents the residual sovereignty that states in both unions enjoy, but extortion for financial gain by means of threatening or exercising a veto in the European Council (and the committees of the Council of the E.U.) suggests that the continued use of a veto by state governments is too problematic to be continued. Residual sovereignty can find adequate representation by qualified majority voting, which is closer the threshold needed to maintain a filibuster in the U.S. Senate. That the E.U. state of Slovakia maintained its veto on a proposed number of federal sanctions against Russia on July 9, 2025 when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia had violated international law in invading Ukraine is a good indication that the veto had outlived its usefulness and was being used by governors for sordid purposes by using the E.U. rather than strengthening it in foreign affairs.

On the very day when Ukraine’s President Zelensky and Pope Leo “discussed the Vatican as a possible location to host peace talks to end Russia’s full-scale invasion” and Zelensky thanked the pope for the Vatican’s help in reuniting 1,350 of more than 19,500 “children taken by Russia after Moscow’s 2022 invasion,”[1] the judges at the European Court of Human Rights, which is not part of the E.U., ruled that Russia’s government had violated international law not only by shooting down the MH17 commercial airliner, but also in “the murder, torture, rape, destruction of civilian infrastructure and kidnapping of Ukrainian children” in Ukraine.[2] Meanwhile, U.S. President Trump voiced frustration at Russia’s President Putin for not being willing to negotiate an end to the invasion, and Putin unleashed “a new record-breaking barrage of drones and missiles against Ukrainian cities.”[3]

On the very same day, the government of the E.U. state of Slovakia confirmed “that it would for the time being maintain its veto on the new package of sanctions that the European Union intends to impose on Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine.”[4] The additional sanctions would target “Russia’s financial and energy sectors, including the Nord Stream pipelines.”[5] Countries supplying or financing Russia’s war machine would also be subject to sanctions. Besides being politically tone-deaf, the wayward state government did not object to the economic restrictions per se, but rather, to “the proposed phase-out of all Russian fossil fuels by the end of 2027.”[6] But because qualified majority-voting rather than unanimity applies to the phase-out proposal, the Slovak governor “resorted to sanctions, which require unanimity, to extract concessions from Brussels.”[7] What kind of concessions?  Plain and simply, the extortion of the E.U. for money as “compensation” for anticipated financial damages, even though the legal opinion of E.U.’s executive branch is that the E.U. prohibition of gas from Russia would “act as ‘force majeure’ in court and shield governments and companies against damages.”[8]

At the very least, the state’s governor was politically tone-deaf on July 9, 2025, more concerned with exploiting the veto mechanism for money than with the visuals in advantaging Russia by vetoing sanctions as leverage for the fossil-fuel prohibition that is subject only to qualified majority vote. That Slovakia’s government had no objection to the economic sanctions and yet maintained a veto against them in order to gain leverage on the gas prohibition, effectively making that proposal subject to a veto, shows that the veto mechanism was indeed subject to abuse at the expense of qualified majority voting. This hyperextension of the veto mechanism to a bill subject only to qualified majority voting suggests that the two voting mechanisms cannot coexist. Power abhors obstacles, and qualified majority voting is an obstacle to state governments accustomed to being able to veto federal legislation and foreign-policy proposals. If indeed the governmental sovereignty retained by the states is sufficiently represented in qualified majority voting, which is 55% of the states and 55% of the population of the E.U., the veto power is an excessive block by states on federal action and the benefits to Europe that can come from collective action. Both the value of such benefits in federal legislation and foreign policy and the exploitation by state governments of their veto power at the federal level argue against retaining the veto mechanism. Slovakia has laid bare the imbalance in the E.U.’s federal system as bottom-heavy at the expense of benefits that could be realized by collective action. The abuse of the veto authority is sufficiently evident in a veto that benefits Russia being confirmed on the very same day that the top court in Europe on human rights ruled against Russia’s invasion and the Pope met with Zelensky on a way forward on peace even as Putin continued to stall for time to unleash more bombs.

Abstractly speaking concerning the E.U., the whole is more than the sum of the parts, and the whole suffers to the extent that a part is able to direct the whole. That each part maintains its integrity as a unit does not justify any part in being able to hold the whole hostage for financial gain. It is utterly unrealistic to assume that a policy or law of the whole is or should be in the political and economic interests of every part. Lastly, for a part to put itself above the whole is presumptuous and egocentric, which is to say, selfish. Given the salience of self-interest, which stems from self-love, in human nature, undermining mechanisms designed to curb exploitation by selfishness at the expense of overall good is utterly foolish in any political society.

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1. Gavin Blackburn, “Zelenskyy and Pope Leo XIV Suggest Vatican as Venue for Ukrainian Peace Talks,” Euronews.com, July 9, 2025.
2. Aleksandar Brezar, “Top European Court Rules Russia Violated International Law in Ukraine,” Euronews.com,
July 9, 2025.
3. Jorge Liboreiro, “Slovakia Maintains Veto on New Package of EU Sanctions against Russia,” Euronews.com, July 9, 2025.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.

Elon Musk’s Controversial Politics: Beyond the Financials

As U.S. President Trump signed his “Big Beautiful Bill” into law on July 4, 2025, Elon Musk, shareholder and CEO of Tesla, announced that he would create a new political party (or “group” in European-speak). Musk opposed the projected trillions of dollars that the bill would add to the debt held by the U.S. federal government, though, as CEO of SpaceX, he was fine with cutting a trillion dollars from Medicaid, which provides health coverage to the poorest of the poor, and from food assistance while the defense budget was augmented. Musk’s proposed “America” group would likely draw support from Trump’s “MAGA” base, rather than from moderate Republicans and any Democrats. Whether Musk was more motivated by breaking up the political duopoly of the two major parties, or groups, to increase the practical options for voters or to split Trump’s support and punish the Republican party, such controversial political involvement by a major shareholder CEO is without doubt risky business. This is not to say that CEO’s should not be active politically apart from business strategy, for even business managers are citizens and thus may feel compelled to become active politically. This is to be lauded especially if the motive is out of duty to repair or otherwise improve a political system.

On the next working day after Musk’s announcement that he would be forming a new political party, “Tesla shares plunged nearly 7 percent . . . as investors registered dismay” at Musk’s “plans to form a third party and his intensifying feud with President Trump.”[1] Even though 7% is not exacting “plunging” or “crushing” Testa shares, beyond the hyperbole of journalists is the point that not avoiding controversy politically has costed Tesla and Musk himself financially. To be sure, billionaires can afford to lose significant wealth and still be left standing comfortably, and even in the case of business practitioners, economic reductionism doesn’t always hold. Also, political involvement can raise stock prices, as, for example, “Musk’s involvement in politics and his financial support for the president’s campaign were once seen by investors as a benefit to Tesla, fueling a steep rise in company shares after the election” in November, 2024.[2] No one but the most cynical would deny, however, that Musk’s chief motivation that led to his involvement in “DOGE” in the White House was for his businesses to benefit even though they did, initially. So that they took a hit when Musk broke from President Trump and then formed the America Party cannot be assessed only as concerns the financial impact on Tesla or SpaceX.

In American history, the notion that wealthy people should devote some time to public service for the benefit of the Union or their respective member-states was once well-known. Both because such people could afford financially to take time off from business and because their experience could be useful in governing, the notion of public duty was beneficial to the public good. Men like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington did not make public service into a career and did not go into politics primarily for its positive financial benefit. As a frustrated General dependent on the sovereign states whose delegates met in the Second Continental Congress, Washington would not have endured such hardships as he did were his motivation simply to benefit himself and his landholdings in Virginia financially. Even though Musk is by no stretch another Washington, more has been involved in Musk’s political motivation than maximizing Tesla’s stock price or gaining government contracts for SpaceX, and even getting back at Donald Trump. Government, moreover, is not just the aggregate of business interests without remainder.

Other billionaires might look to Musk’s example not in terms of his political ideology necessarily, but in terms of having enough financial cushion to weather political-turned-financial pushback from going beyond business to engage in public service—to give back, as it were, so to improve the system of government and add to the public good. It is admittedly very easy to be guided by personal and business financial considerations in delving into politics, whereas being willing to hold those at bay out of a sense of public duty is more difficult, and, frankly, increasing rare as American history has proceeded but not necessarily evolved politically. The notion that duty pertains to citizenship has become increasingly recessive in public discourse and consciousness. This is to say that duty-bound CEO’s are saints; rather, it is to say that we shouldn’t be so surprised when a billionaire businessman jumps into politics not merely for financial reasons, and thus not turn back to shore after a financial hit. Even if motivated by political ideology rather than in saving the union from itself (e.g., public debt), personal and business financial benefit is not the whole story, and the public good can still be a beneficiary. 

Mozi says, "'worthy people [are] those who are well versed in virtuous conduct, discriminating in discussion, and broadly knowledgeable!’ . . . . When the wealthy and eminent in the state heard this they retired and thought to themselves, ‘At first, we could rely on our wealth and eminence, but now the king promotes the righteous and does not turn away the poor and the humble. This being the case, we too must be righteous.'"[3]

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1. Jack Ewing, “Musk’s Idea of 3^rd Party Is Crushing Testla Shares,” The New York Times, July 8, 2025.

2. Ibid.

3. Philip J. Ivanhoe and Bryan W. Van Norden, ed.s, Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy (New York: Seen Bridges Press, 2001), 58.

Putting a State in Charge of the E.U.

If only Ukraine could become the 51^st member-state of the U.S., rather than the 28^th state of the E.U., given the veto of Viktor Orban of the E.U. state of Hungary on the E.U. annexing Ukraine. Besides the inherent problems that come with relying so much on the principle of unanimity in the European Council and the Council of the E.U., mislabeling the prime minister of the state that chairs the legislative committees known collectively as the Council of the E.U. as the E.U. president not only marginalizes the federal officials, including President Von der Leyen, who, as the head of the E.U.’s executive branch, can rightfully be considered as the president of the European Union. In contrast, government officials of a state chairing legislative committees can hardly be said to collectively be the “presidency” of the European Union. Behind the promotion of this fallacy is the anti-federalist, or Euroskeptic, political ideology that misconstrues the E.U. as merely a network of intergovernmental relations between the states.

Although the E.U., like the U.S., splits governmental sovereignty between two systems—that of the union and that of the states, the two unions have different ways in which state officials participate at the federal level. The official participation roles are greater in E.U. institutions than in U.S. institutions at the union level. In his book, Federal Government, Kenneth Wheare makes the point that federalism has two systems of government, neither of which is a “level” above the other. He is correct because the sovereignty remaining with state governments, which in both unions includes all residual sovereignty, is not “lower” than the exclusive or shared competencies, or enumerated domains of power, delegated to the federal governmental institutions. The fallacy of “levels” is much easier to grasp by looking that the European Union than the United States because of the extent of official roles in certain E.U. governmental institutions for state officials, whereas in the U.S., state officials lost their direct participation when U.S. senators became elected offices rather than by appointment by the respective state chief executives/heads of state/commanders in chief (i.e., “governors” being those who govern) or legislatures. This difference may be why so much governmental sovereignty will not be transferred from the system of state governments to the union’s governmental institutions in the E.U. by 100 or 200 years in the E.U. as in the U.S. as of the 249^th anniversary of the thirteen colonies boldly (as there was considerable risk) declaring themselves to be free and independent countries, then already in a military alliance (i.e., the Continental Congress).

On the day before the 249^th anniversary of 13 British colonies in North America declaring themselves to be sovereign countries, Ukrainian President Zelensky attended “the opening ceremony of the Danish EU Presidency in Aarhus.”[1] Depicting or characterizing Denmark as the “EU Presidency” is misleading, for the reference is to officials of that state chairing policy-domain specific committees rather than standing for the E.U. itself. The exaggeration is at the expense of recognition that the Commission’s head, Von der Leyen, a federal rather than a state official, has a greater claim to speak for the European Union. As president of the E.U.'s executive branch, Von der Leyen delivers the annual State of the Union address at the Parliament chamber, just as the president of the U.S. delivers the State of the Union in the U.S. House of Representatives' chamber. It is revealing that just before the Parliament's vote of confidence in Von der Leyen on July 10, 2025, a lawyer specialized in E.U. law predicted that even if the vote is favorable to Von der Leyen, more "and more [E.U.] citizens will ask themselves, is she really the right person to lead the E.U. in such turbulent times."[2] It is not as though the rotating 6-month "presidency" of whatever state government is chairing the committees known collectively as the Council of the E.U. could claim to be at the helm, and thus step in for a weakened Von der Leyen. 

Generally speaking, putting a state in charge of the E.U. would be loaded with intractable problems. In June of the same year, the governor of the E.U. state of France presumed to speak for the European Union rather than just for his state on foreign policy, effectively (and I suspect intentionally) sidelining the E.U.’s president and its foreign minister, an office that is deliberately mislabeled as the “High Representative” to appease Euroskeptics. 

Regarding the involvement of the state governments at the federal level, the President of the European Council, António Costa, had a greater claim than the chair of legislative committees to be referred to as a president, and Macron of France was not the federal official standing for the European Council. That the governor of the E.U. state of Denmark “vowed to support Ukraine’s accession process” to be annexed by the E.U. and to use the “presidency of the E.U. Council to put ‘maximum pressure’ on Hungary to lift its veto on Ukraine” being annexed by the E.U. is less significant than the pressure than the federal officials António Costa and Ursula von der Leyen could apply on Hungary’s governor.[3] In response the emphasis, for example, of the Danish foreign minister chairing the other state foreign ministers in one of the committees in the Council of the E.U., Viktor Orban could more easily relegate Von der Leyen, Kaja Kallas and António Costa and thus deflate pressure from the E.U. itself, which is greater than a committee of state officials chaired by a Danish state official.

In other words, the paralyzing impact of retaining vetoes in the European Council and the Council of the E.U. is exacerbated by falsely portraying a state government as the “Presidency of the E.U.” The Parliament and the Commission even together may be too weak to counter the power of the states in the E.U. governmental system within the federal system; mislabeling a state as the E.U. Presidency only exacerbates the imbalance, even if it is a policy of officials of that state to resist the veto of another state. The E.U. is more than being the simple aggregate of the states, and the European Court of Justice, the European Commission, and the European Parliament are all institutions of the E.U. that manifest the E.U. being more than the sum of its states. Just as balance is important between the system of state governments and the system of the federal government in a federal system, so too balance of power is important between the branches of government, and in this respect the federal government should be distinguished from state government within a federal system because only in the former are some institutions representing states and others represent federal citizens. It is important that the power of the state officials in union institutions not overwhelm the power of federal officials in other union-institutions, lest particular state interests dominate those of the whole. Denmark may have its own economic and political interests with respect to Ukraine, whereas Von der Leyen and Kallas represent the E.U.’s interests rather than those of any state. Overstating the salience of the state governments in E.U. governance at the expense of federal officials.

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1. Evelyn Ann-Marie Dom and Jorge Liboreiro, “Ukraine Will Do ‘Anything’ to Advance EU Accession Talks Despite Hungary Veto, Zelenskyy Says,” Euronews.com, July 3, 2025.
2. Sandor Zsiros, "EU Parliament Censure Vote Leaves von der Leyen Weakened, even in Victory," Euronews.com, July 10, 2025, italics added.

3.  Evelyn Ann-Marie Dom and Jorge Liboreiro, “Ukraine Will Do ‘Anything’ to Advance EU Accession Talks Despite Hungary Veto, Zelenskyy Says,” Euronews.com, July 3, 2025.