Proliferating Blocs: The E.U. and Mercosur

Words matter; they may not break bones, but they can wreak havoc if they are used carelessly or ideologically. Political labels can stick, and, if inaccurate, they can result in people having an incorrect impression of what something or someone is, politically. The war that began in North America in 1861, for example, has typically been labeled as a civil war, but it may be more accurately labeled as the C.S.A.-U.S.A. War because the Confederate States of America did not want to take over the U.S.A.; it was not as if the C.S.A.’s goal was to conquer and government the U.S.A. Having established itself as a functioning political entity even though U.S. President Lincoln refused to acknowledge the political existence of the C.S.A., that union could be said to have existed and been at war with the U.S.A. from 1861-1865. Two unions of states were at war with each other; it was not as if the Union Army was at war with individual seceded states. The C.S.A. had a government apart from the state governments. So “the war between the states” is an inaccurate label because it denies the existence of the two unions. But the common label of a civil war is also problematic because two political factions were not fighting each other for control of the U.S.A. If this criticism seems unusual and even perhaps rather strange, the reason may be because the victor’s labeling of the war has been so overwhelming. My point is that this does not mean that the labeling is accurate just because it has been widely accepted. Similarly, the labeling by E.U. officials (including the E.U.’s ambassador to the U.S.) of the European Union as a bloc is not accurate. 

That the label has been meant to placate anti-federalist Euroskeptics, such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, so they don’t further weaken the Union renders the actual, self-inflicted weakening as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Furthermore, that the E.U.’s self-inflicted weakening-by-label has fit the militaristic agenda of Russia’s President Putin and the isolationist agenda of the American President Trump like a glove seems not to have disturbed the E.U.’s political elite. That the E.U. has never been an informal trading “bloc” of sovereign countries like the Mercosur trading bloc in South America is seems not to have bothered the European labelers, including the enabling media.

For example, reporting on a speech by E.U. President Von der Leyen’s to the Parliament, European journalists referred to both the E.U. and the coordination on trade by four countries in South America as “blocs,” as if the two were of the same political type or genre. For instance, Euronews reported that with regard to the E.U. helping Ukraine withstand Putin’s continuing invasion and signing a trade deal with the four countries in America, at “stake is the 27-member bloc’s credibility to shape its foreign policy and trade agenda.”[1] But it is the E.U.’s foreign policy and its trade agenda, not the aggregate of all of the states’ foreign policies and trade agendas, and this difference is backed up by the E.U. having an executive, legislative, and judicial branch of its own, albeit with state participation in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Blocs do not have governmental branches. The label of bloc does, however, fit “the South American Mercosur bloc” of four countries because that bloc is simply an alignment of trade policies.[2] There was not Mercosur executive, legislature, and supreme court, no Mercosur social policy, and not even a Mercosur federal system wherein governmental sovereignty is split between states and a federal level. The false equivalence of the European Union and Mercosur is a grave insult to Europe, and yet it has repeatedly been self-inflicted by the European political elite itself.

I contend that the E.U. has been a formidable accomplishment, not a perfect union, but far beyond what a bloc is and can muster, and that the potential of that union of states should therefore not be held back by a dominative label intended placate an anti-federalist minority. The costs of continuing to treat the E.U. as equivalent to a trading bloc of countries in South America may seem bearable, but President Von der Leyen’s point that the E.U. was then at a critical inflection-point concerning Europe’s security and independence, global image, and international standing means that the E.U. could no longer afford to label itself as a bloc as if were just another Mercosur group of countries.

For on the very same day as Von der Leyen was delivering a speech to the European Parliament, Russian President Putin was telling a gathering of his military brass, “European swine wanted to feast on the collapse of Russia” and—interestingly in echoing comments only recently made by the American President, Donald Trump—in referring to Europe and the E.U. in particular, “Today it turns out there is no civilisation there, only complete degradation.”[3] Swine degrading European civilization. Ouch! Unfortunately, Russian tanks, bombs, and troops in Ukraine combined with Putin’s rejection of the proposed American compromise because it does not give Russia all the territory is wants in Ukraine render the punch behind the insult more serious than mere words. It is ironic that words spoken outside of the E.U. have made the Europeans’ own use of their word, “bloc,” more costly because what bloc could expect itself to issue its own debt to help Ukraine militarily? What bloc can have a federal foreign policy? What bloc can do more than rely on state militias for a defense? Simply in degrading these expectations, the European political elite continued to shoot itself in its collective foot as Putin continued to apply his political theory that military might makes right in Europe.

The E.U. is neither a regional UN nor a trading bloc of sovereign countries, nor even an international organization. All of these claims are the result of ideological resentment and political expediency. These two vices in the E.U. are like water to a fish. That the member-states ceded some of their governmental sovereignty to be exclusive and even shared competencies of the European Union effectively relegates such false equivalencies to the dust bin, so it is strange that they persisted at least through 2025. In fact, the staying power of the principle of unanimity in place of qualified-majority voting on some major issues may stem from the continuing misunderstanding that the E.U. is merely a bloc.

So, labels do matter, and they can get in the way. This is especially problematic in hard times, for European integration in the E.U. has largely happened only times of crisis. The rhetoric of presidents Trump and Putin alone justifies President Von der Leyen’s statement, “Yesterday’s peace is gone. We have no time to indulge in nostalgia. What matters is how we confront today.”[4] Describing the E.U. as a bloc of member-states does not even qualify as nostalgia because the E.U. has never been a bloc; the self-defeating label sprang out of anti-Americanism (lest the E.U. be held to be equivalent to the U.S. as an empire-scale federal system characterized definitively by dual sovereignty) and the political fear of the domestic, yes, domestic, opposition of anti-federalist Euroskeptics that is ironically strengthened in its version of political reality by the label itself. Self-inflicted weakness in a partisan ideological battle hardly attracts support.

---

1. Mared Gwyn Jones, “Von der Leyen Warns of EU’s ‘Dangerous’ Reality in Shifting World Order Ahead of Crunch Summit,” Euronews.com, 17 December 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Sasha Vakulina, “’European Swine Wanted to Feast on Russia’s Collapse,’ Putin Says Bashing Europe,” Euronews.com, 17 December 2025.
4. Mared Gwyn Jones, “Von der Leyen Warns of EU’s ‘Dangerous’ Reality in Shifting World Order Ahead of Crunch Summit,” Euronews.com, 17 December 2025.

Homelessness in the E.U.: Rectifying a Right

In late 2025, the E.U. Commission presented its first European Affordable Housing Plan. The E.U.’s involvement in “social housing,” which translates into federal funds being used to provide housing beyond homeless shelters for people who cannot afford to house themselves, implies that the programs of the states had been insufficient. The U.S. could take a lesson from the Commission’s plan, which is cleverly multi-pronged in tackling the societal problem. Both in the E.U. and U.S., both federal and state funds were needed even in 2025 when neither economy was in recession. It is better to increase the supply of affordable housing when times are good than when unemployment is soaring. This is an exception in the E.U. to the usual pattern wherein the E.U. increases its competencies, or enumerated powers, in periods of one crisis or another. Russia’s multi-year invasion of Ukraine, which borders the E.U., and the Union’s foreign and defense activity demonstrate how European integration has typically been enhanced by crisis rather than when times are good.

Homeless in both the E.U. and U.S. was a problem in 2024. In its “9^th Overview on Housing Exclusion” in 2024, Feantsa estimated a total of 1,287,000 people “rough sleeping, staying in night shelters, or temporary accommodation” in the European Union.[1] According to the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, 771,400 people were homeless in January, 2024—an increase of 118,300 from 2023.[2] The total population of the E.U. at the end of 2024 was estimated at 450.4 million, and that of the U.S. was 341.8 million (whereas the respective states tended to cluster in the tens of millions). That works out to .0028% and .0023%, respectively. This may come as a surprise because in Europe, housing is more likely to be viewed as a right than in the United States.

Dan Jorgensen, the E.U. Commissioner for Energy and Housing (and the first such commissioner in E.U. history), said at the time of the Commission’s presentation of its proposal, “Housing is not just a commodity; it is a fundamental right. We must mobilise every euro and do everything in our power to make sure that in Europe everyone can afford a decent place to call home.”[3] In the U.S., the lax regulations on investor-speculators on houses, condos, and even apartment buildings evince a commodities-orientation to residential real-estate, whereas in the E.U. the homelessness problem may have more to do with insufficient supply rather than the salience of a political ideology favoring business or disfavoring the poor as deserving their plight.

I contend that permanent housing as a right is a better political ideology than is the business-commodity view of housing units both because being homeless takes such a terrible toll of the human psyche and because society should be obligated via the market or else the state to supply permanent housing because economic interdependence is endemic to a society as opposed to Hobbes’ state of nature, where life is short and brutish. Put another way, being in the state of nature in terms of housing while being in a society does not work because a society and a state of nature are mutually exclusive. 

It is inconsistent to insert, especially within city and even a town, even a slice of Hobbes' state of nature, whether in the form of sociopathic violent gangs for which law in south Chicago in Illinois is wholly disrespected, or homeless individuals in a town or city. Having the state of nature within a society is not like Yin being in Yang, and vice versa, in Chinese philosophy; rather, the state of nature inside a society contradicts the necessity that Kant argued is inherent to law, whether public or moral law. Furthermore, to tolerate homelessness within a society is like inserting a vice like vengeance into omnibenevolence—a point that Nietzsche makes in claiming that the Abrahamic deity is “dead” in the sense of having been discredited by being both vengeful and perfectly benevolent, which are incompatible with each other. Even though the effort to rid humans of vengeance is laudable, the cost in assigning the vice to God was surprisingly overlooked, and still is. Similarly, the utter incompatibility of homelessness and society is seldom recognized. 

By the end of 2025, it was well beyond time for the E.U.’s Commission to come up with a plan to rid the Union once and for all of the sordid plight of homelessness. Ridding Europeans of the constant, underlying existential angst that does not leave a mind that is subtly aware that homelessness could occur in the future can be expected to result in happier, more relaxed people and thus less interpersonal strife. It is indeed realistic that the E.U., together with the member-states, could together, as a shared competency, eliminate  the problem of homelessness in 2026 by relaxing state rules on whom can receive housing assistance (i.e., not just the very poor), using federal “European Social Housing” funds to get homeless people immediately into at least short-term housing (even hotels), and incentivizing the construction of more housing units to meet the demand, and even reducing housing prices and rents for everyone. The sordid commodity perspective in America would be exposed as severely flawed, as it reflects elected officials across that Union being in the campaign-financing pockets of private finance and business rather than looking out for, or protecting, all constituents from the horrible experience of being homeless. Just in virtue of being a human being—how we are hard-wired and how vulnerable the human brain or mind is to the incapacitating harm from severe, existential stress—something beyond short-term housing should be ensured unconditionally. How a human mind reacts to being homeless ought to justify the unconditional aspect, as those who do not work must wander around at all times and be subject to theft is a callous ideological belief.

---

1. “What is Homelessness,” Feantsa, Feantsa.org (accessed 16 December 2025).
2. Lisa McKay and Kenneth Cowles, “Who Is Homeless in the United States? A 2025 Update,” The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, March 14, 2025.
3. Vincenzo Genovese, “EU to Revise State Aid Rules to Address bloc-wide Housing Crisis,” Euronews.com, 16 December 2025.

On the E.U.’s Mercosur Deal: State Obstructionism

After 25 years negotiating with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, the E.U.’s Commission sought to secure passage of the massive trade-deal in the European Council and the Parliament by the end of 2025. Even though the vote is by qualified-majority voting rather than unanimity in both chambers, one state that was against the treaty sought to delay the vote in the Council, which represents states rather than E.U. citizens. The Commission rightly pushed back on the tactic because for one state in opposition to be able to put off a vote is tantamount to having a veto, which a mechanism only for E.U. competencies that are subject to unanimous approval in the Council.

Due to concerns of possible unfair competition voiced by farmers in the E.U. state of France, that state’s government was “demanding strong safeguards to suspend tariff reductions if imports disrupt EU markets, so called ‘reciprocity clauses’ that align Mercosur’s environmental and agricultural standards with EU standards, and tougher EU sanitary and phytosanitary controls.”[1] Without a veto, making a demand would be too strong, and even presumptuous. So too is the statement that was made by the office of the state’s prime minister’s office: “While a Mercosur summit is scheduled for 20 December, It is clear that . . . the conditions are not in place for any vote by the EU Council on authorizing the signing of the agreement.”[2] This sounds a lot like a statement that the vote could not take place.

The Commission’s deputy chief spokesperson, Olof Gill, cut down the state’s claim that conditions were not in place. In fact, Gill told reporters that in “the view of the Commission signing the deal now is a matter of crucial importance economically, diplomatically, and geopolitically, but also in terms of our credibility on the global stage.”[3] The Parliament was due to vote the next day on a safeguard amendment, with some representatives set to add an amendment on reciprocity. With half of the month of December ahead, the only condition relevant to there being a vote in the European Council was whether the Parliament would vote in favor of the treaty. Whether or not the safeguard and reciprocity amendments pass in the Parliament is a legitimate concern to whether the state of France votes for or against the treaty in the Council, but whether the amendments pass should not pertain to whether the Council holds a vote. In short, the government of France was overreaching even if only in its rhetoric.

The problem of too many E.U. exclusive and shared enumerated competencies, including changes to the E.U.’s basic law, being subject to unanimity in the Council and thus contingent on no state wielding its veto in that upper chamber was already hampering the E.U., especially in the areas of foreign and defense policy even as Russia was invading Ukraine; the E.U. didn’t need the Council to set a precedent of delaying or cancelling a vote just because a state in opposition objects even to there being a vote. Such a precedent is as if each state would have a veto on matters subject to qualified-majority voting rather than unanimity. Even use of language that connotes or implies that the state of France could unilaterally control the European Council is troubling, given the power that the state governments continued to have at the federal level through the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Put another way, the E.U. was already “state-heavy” in terms of obstruction at the federal level; the E.U. could least afford a state in opposition deciding whether conditions for a vote in either of the councils have been met. Moreover, focusing too much on individual pieces of legislation without keeping an eye out for any negative impact on the federal system itself from how the legislative process is being carried out is short-sighted.

---

1. Peggy Corlin, “European Commission Turns Up Pressure on France over Mercosur,” Euronews.com, 15 December 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Immobilizing E.U. Holdings of Russian Assets

By invoking Article 122 of the E.U.’s basic law, a clause that had been used most significantly during the Coronavirus pandemic and in the 2022 energy crisis, the E.U. in December, 2025 finally circumvented the twice-threatened veto by the state of Hungary and indefinitely froze €210 billion of assets of the Russian Central Bank that had been within the E.U.’s territory since Russia began its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine nearly four years earlier. I contend that the European Court of Justice, the E.U.’s supreme court, could apply a rational basis in a judicial review of the triggering of the emergency-conditioned article, especially because the Commission invoked the article in order to obviate Hungary’s threatened veto. Because every E.U. state except for Belgium and Hungary were for freezing the assets until Russia such time as Russia ends its militaristic aggression and compensates Ukraine financially for damages the Belgian and Hungarian state governments were violating the informal norm of consensus in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Like the U.S. Senate, the European Council, which also represents the states, is like a club of sorts. The problem facing the Commission is that violating a norm is not a legal basis for obviating a threatened state-veto by invoking an emergency clause of the E.U.’s basic law, especially if no emergency actually exists after nearly four years of the invasion. Even though I am personally in favor of the E.U. obviating Hungary’s serial obstructionism that may be, at least in part, retaliation against President Von der Leyen’s Commission for having penalized the Hungarian government financially for having violated E.U. law, legal reasoning should not succumb to the gravity of the “black hole” of personal opinion.  There may be nothing so much like a god as a general on a battlefield, with power over life and death, but neither the European Commission nor myself is a general. In short, the Commission’s legal justification in invoking Article 122 is tenuous at best, even though countering Hungary’s Viktor Orbán’s abuse of his state’s veto-power in the European Council and the Council of Ministers was needed for the E.U. to be able to function within its enumerated competencies (i.e., powers).

The reason for indefinitely holding the Russian central bank’s financial assets that have been in the E.U. since the beginning of the invasion is so the E.U. could use those assets as a basis for making loans to Ukraine to bolster the sovereign state’s military position without the E.U. having to issue its own debt. “We are sending a strong signal to Russia that as long as this brutal war of aggression continues, Russia’s costs will continue to rise,” President Von der Leyen said.[1] The objective was to “make sure that our brave neighbour beomes even stronger on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.”[2] According to Euronews, the E.U. was able to shore up “its mightiest leverage,” push back against “external interference” and insulate “the money from the Kremlin’s war machine—all at once.”[3] The external interference was not really external, as this refers to the financially self-interested objection of the state of Belgium and the pro-Russian objection of Viktor Orbán of Hungary. Obviating self-interested states whose governors are willing to go against the other 25 states in the Council is laudable even though this objective can be traced back to the E.U.’s federal system, which must be taken as a given to the ECJ. To be sure, finding a way to do it by invoking an article of the E.U.’s basic law was not an easy task for the Commission.

“At first, the Commission suggested activating Article 31.2 . . . to switch the [6 months] renewal of sanctions from unanimity to qualified majority.”[4] The sanctions include holding the Russian financial assets. The article is vaguely, and thus problematically from the standpoint of constitutional language, based on “strategic interests and objectives.”[5] This wording could potentially enable the E.U., by qualified majority voting, to encroach excessively on governmental sovereignty retained by the states. That any state government could invoke “vital and stated reasons” of “policy”—again too vague—to veto any such bills that are in the strategic interests and objectives of the E.U. as a whole meant that the governor of Hungary could easily invoke its ties to Russia as vital reasons to veto the proposal to freeze the Russian assets indefinitely.

So, the Commission turned to Article 122, which applies qualified-majority voting rather than unanimity in the European Council (and the Council of Ministers) “in a spirit of solidarity . . . appropriate to the economic situation.”[6] Here too, the constitutional language is too vague. Hungary’s Orbán had been fragrantly violating the spirit of solidarity for years, and “economic situation” is so vague that the article could potentially be used to expunge unanimity from the federal level.

Furthermore, that Article 122 “bypasses the European Parliament” is also problematic because that democratically elected legislative chamber, the “lower house,” could otherwise act as a check on the Commission and the councils exploiting the article to rid the E.U. of the need for unanimity in the councils. Also, requiring a qualified majority vote in the Parliament would not in itself give the state governments the power to use their respective vetoes in the councils. One of the principal benefits of federalism, as distinct from confederalism, is the mechanism of state-federal checks-and-balances. Considering the American history of consolidation at the expense of the governmental sovereignty retained by the states, the vague constitutional language of Article 122 could be exploited. This is not to say that retaining the state-veto mechanism in the councils is at all healthy for the European federal system. Other means, such as requiring a qualified majority in the European Parliament, are consistent with federalism.

Such a check would be of value in terms of the indefinite freezing of Russian financial assets because the Commission interpreted “appropriate to the economic situation” to be invokable due to a “serious economic impact,” including in “supply disruptions, higher uncertainty, increased risk premia, lower investment and consumer spending,” as well as “non-economic drone incursions, sabotage and disinformation.”[7] Again, higher uncertainty and lower investment and consumer spending provide the Commission with virtually a wide-open door to obviate unanimity in the councils.

Earlier in 2025, the Commission had invoked Article 122 “to set up SAFE which allows member states to directly approve a Commission proposal [by qualified majority rather than unanimously] ‘if severe difficulties arise in the supply of certain produces’ or if a member state is ‘seriously threatened with severe difficulties caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences beyond its control’.”[8] Tellingly, it was the Parliament rather than a state government that objected, which is a telling indication that the Parliament should not have been excluded from the procedure to be followed according to the article.

With regard to the “emergency” said by the Commission to justify invoking Article 122 to indefinitely freeze the Russian financial assets in the E.U., the governor of Belgium, Bart De Wever, “questioned the existence of any EU-wide emergency,” as Russia’s invasion was nearing its fourth anniversary.[9] For instance, only 10% of energy in the E.U. was by that time from Russia.[10] Even though the E.U.’s evident economic woes, coupled with the vague wording of Article 122 and its limited jurisprudence, gave the Commission enough leeway to forge ahead,” using even “the economic situation” to invoke the article is highly problematic, especially as the obvious intent was to undercut the state-veto mechanism, which under the E.U.’s basic law at the time, was valid even though Hungary and Belgium were, for self-interested political and financial reasons, respectively, abusing the mechanism given the norm of consensus in the councils.

The upshot is that the E.U. could do better in tightening its constitutional, or basic-law, language, enlarging the coverage of the Parliament (especially as a check on the Commission). In the meantime, the ECJ should take a look at the Commission’s invoking of Article 122, especially on the Commission’s interpretation that “economic situation” really means “economic emergency,” which actually makes sense so to avoid the article from being invoked for virtually anything, and that an emergency was still the case almost four years after the commencement of the Russian invasion, which does not seem to be a valid claim. In the background is the consolidation by the U.S. of power at the expense of that of the member-states, and the related switch from the state governments appointing U.S. senators to them being elected by the citizens of the states. Citizens of a state may not vote so to protect the remaining governmental sovereignty held by their state, whereas senators appointed by state governors and/or legislatures would naturally have an incentive to keep an eye on the federal division of governmental sovereignty. Nevertheless, the veto power of the E.U.’s state governments, especially as there were 27 at the time of the invocation of Article 122 to freeze Russian assets, is arguably excessive and thus harmful to the E.U. level as well as the federal system itself, which should allow for federal oversight “with teeth” on abuses by state governments, especially in infringing on democracy and liberty.

---

1. Jorge Liboreiro, “By Locking in Russian Assets for Good, the EU Is Finally Playing Hardball,” Euronews.com, 13 December 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.

U.S. Presidential Encroachment on State Prerogatives

Both in the E.U. and U.S., the member-states are semi-sovereign, and are even guaranteed all residual sovereignty that is not in any of the enumerated competencies (i.e., powers) of the respective unions and the states. Europeans are smart to have multiple avenues for the state governments in the European Council and the Council of Ministers so those governments can protect themselves against encroachment by the Commission. To be sure, these safeguards go too far, especially given the sheer number of states even by the mid-2020s, in giving each state a veto especially on important matters in which qualified-majority voting does not apply. In other words, the safeguards against federal encroachment in the E.U. are excessive as long as each state can wield its veto against federal policies, legislation, and regulations. Regarding the latter, the directive means provides each state with some latitude. I suspect that the Europeans who constructed the E.U.’s federal system were in part fearful of federal encroachment because so much of that had already built-up in the U.S., where federal consolidation had become a threat to the governmental sovereignty of the member-states, as if they were just regions rather than republics holding even more sovereignty, on parchment at least, than does Congress and the federal president. So, it is worth taking not of the rare instances in which a state legislature pushes back against threats from the U.S. president on a competency (i.e., enumerated power) reserved by the states.  The rejection by the Indiana Senate of U.S. President Trump’s pressure to accept new districts for U.S. House representatives from Indiana—a map in which the Republican Group would likely pick up two seats—is important because Congressional-district maps are the prerogative of the states rather than an encroaching federal executive.

According to Article 1, Section 4 of the U.S. basic law (consolidated as a constitution), the member-states have the primary authority to regulate the “times, places, and manner” of the U.S. House or Representatives’ elections. This authority includes enacting the boundaries of the districts within a state. To be sure, Congress has been delegated authority to override a state’s Congressional-district map, as federal oversight is in line with the “checks and balances” feature of modern federalism. For instance, a state’s map that discriminates against regions populated mostly by a racial minority would be ripe for Congressional action. It is significant that the U.S. president plays no role either in crafting such maps or in oversight. Therefore, U.S. President Trump’s threats laid against certain senators in the Indiana Senate so they would pass a new Congressional map before the next census so to give Trump’s Republican group in the U.S. House of Representatives more representation than otherwise would likely be the case was a case of federal encroachment of a state power encased in the U.S. Constitution. The Indiana senators voted prudently and justifiably in rejecting the U.S. President’s “bully tactics.”

Senator Michael Crider, a Republican, who faced “threats of violence and intimidation,” issued a statement after he voted no on the redistricting proposal.[1] “When you get kind of bullied and threatened, if that tactic works, then you can expect to deal with that for the rest of your political career.”[2] Sen. Vaneta Becker issued the following statement: “I think this looks like and feels like bullying, and I don’t think Hoosiers respond well to bullying.”[3] Neither, I might add, do Illinoisians on the other side of the Wabash river, to whom people from the Indiana side of the river-border used to shout, “Whos you’r,” hence the mascot, “Hoosier”, instead of who are you?

The same consequences of giving into a bully can be said of a state legislature; once it capitulates to threats and pressure from the federal executive (or Congress), threats will be more likely to continue and even become more dire until the member-state legislators are afraid to use even the powers reserved for the states. In the case of the redistricting plan, President Trump even threatened the Indiana government that federal funds would be cut off from the state in retaliation for not approving the president’s partisan plan. Sen. Spencer Deery made the problem of encroachment on the state explicit: “As long as I have breath, I will use my voice to resist a federal government that attempts to bully, direct and control this state or any state. Giving the federal government more power is not conservative.”[4] That a prerogative of a state legislature could be circumvented “at the whim of a president’s request” was too much for Sen. Mike Bohacek too.[5] Therefore, both in terms of threatening Indiana lawmakers, who have been democratically elected, and in terms of eclipsing federalism, wherein the vital element of checks-and-balances between the federal institutions and those of states, the political courage of the Indiana Republican senators who voted against President Trump’s partisan plan is laudable. Threats of violence have no place in politics, and efforts to usurp the governmental sovereignty that is reserved for the states, whether in the U.S. or E.U., should be resisted lest the check-and-balance “oversight” feature of modern, dual-sovereignty, federalism be lost.

Fortunately, the “acts of intimidation and threats and acts of violence targeting [Republican Indiana] senators who opposed” the proposal backfired, as a majority of the 40 Republican senators voted against the bill.[6] Ironically, politically conservative principles were cited by some of those senators. The head of the Republican Group in the Indiana Senate, Sen. Rodric Bray, said, “many of my caucus members don’t think redrawing our Congressional map mid-cycle is a guaranteed way for Indiana.”[7] In short, changing maps for partisan purposes mid-way through a decade violates the tradition of redrawing maps only just after the U.S. census, which occurs once every decade. As per conservative principles, Bray urged Republicans to campaign more so as to sway a district that was then held by a Democrat but becoming increasingly Republican. As the saying goes, elections have consequences.

 

---

1. Paul Blumenthal, “These Are The Indiana Republicans Who Voted To Crush Trump’s Redistricting Plan,” The Huffington Post, December 12, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.

The E.U.: A Political Union

As if having elected representatives and political parties in the European Parliament were not enough evidence that the E.U. has been a political union all along, the distinctly political role of the E.U. with regard to Ukraine amid the Russian invasion renders the E.U. political not merely institutionally in regard to representative democracy, which is a political rather than an economic system. Also, that the European Commission has exclusive competency on trade does not eclipse the union’s distinctly political activity. That the E.U. agreed to move forward informally with Ukraine’s accession request even though the state of Hungary was formally vetoing the accession demonstrates a political function or role of the European Union.

In December, 2025, the E.U. announced that it had “drawn up an action plan” for Ukraine to meet accession standards “despite official talks being blocked by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.”[1] To be sure, for one state to wield its veto at the federal level when all of the other states are opposed is arguably a case of an abuse of the informal consensus model; after all, it was not as though Ukraine’s accession would threaten the vital interests of the state of Hungary. That veto-power of the states in the European Council and the Council of Ministers on E.U. competencies (i.e., enumerated powers) is itself a misplaced harbinger of a confederal system of government, wherein the states retain all governmental sovereignty, rather than modern federalism, wherein competencies, or governmental sovereignty, are divided between federal and state governmental institutions. So the Commission was entirely justified in working informally to find a political means by which the government of Ukraine could get itself up to the anti-corruption, pro-democratic standards of the E.U. (even though Bulgaria’s government collapsed that December due to mass protests against corruption in that government/administration).

The E.U.’s ten-point plan for Ukraine to follow in order to be assessed at a later date, perhaps after Orbán’s upcoming election, is inherently political (rather than economic) because the Commission framed the accession as “essential” to providing Ukraine “with future security guarantees.”[2] The Union’s Enlargement Commissioner, Marta Kos, said at the time of the announcement that Ukraine’s accession is “the political arm of the European security guarantee for Ukraine” and would be “central to make any peace settlement sustainable.”[3] The E.U.’s executive branch was thus acting in a political capacity. Thus the E.U. is a political union even at its distinctly federal level (i.e., apart from any institutional involvement of the state governments at the federal level).

Put another way, because the E.U. executive branch used it 10-point plan to “bypass Hungary’s political veto on the official opening of accession negotiations,” the E.U. itself was carrying out a distinctly political function. It is difficult to argue that the E.U. was not a political union at the time, yet operated politically even apart from any formal involvement of the state governments at the federal level. Yet ideological denial was still strong enough for many E.U. citizens to deny not only that the E.U. is a political union, but that also that it has a federal system even though having states is sufficient for the E.U. to have a federal system. Underneath the antiquated state-veto lies the Euroskeptic and anti-American political ideologies that have been holding the E.U. back not only from being able to enlarge, but also to adequately aid Ukraine militarily through years of it being invaded by Russia.

1. Mared G. Jones, “EU and Ukraine Agree 10-Point Plan to Speed Up Kyiv’s Accession Bid Despite Hungary’s Veto,” 11 December, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid. Italics added.

Police Ignoring Laws in Florida: A Case of Systemic Corruption

Systemic corruption means not only that a department or agency has an organizational culture that allows for and may even laud corruption, but also that a city hall, as well as larger jurisdictions such as member-states and even federal agencies may be enabling the corruption by looking the other way and even lying to cover-up the lower-level corruption. A study at Florida Atlantic University published in the Journal of Criminal Justice identifies 24 categories of police misconduct in Florida from 2012 to 2023. Even though it is tempting to highlight violent illegal acts by police employees, lying regarding criminal law and refusing to take reports of criminal activity may be more detrimental because such misconduct is probably more common than is the violent sort. If so, the extent of corruption and the underlying false sense of entitlement by police patrol-employees and even their supervisors may be vastly understated in the United States.

The “24 categories of police misconduct” in Florida range “from assault/battery to weapons offenses, manslaughter, homicide, extortion and false statements/perjury (lying under oath).”[1] The results of the study state that “the most considerable incidence of police misconduct offenses was related to officer failure to report and perjury.”[2] The incidence of this type of corruption was higher than “sexual-related crimes” and “(d)rug and alcohol-related offenses.”[3] The serial lying to citizens and refusing their requests for police reports reflects back on the faulty use of psychological screening on police applicants. The propensity to bully too is indicative that such screening has been substandard and therefore should be drastically fortified.

The police department in Largo, Florida, which is located just north of St Petersburg and west of Tampa, is a case in point. As of 2025 at least, police personnel who have taken oaths to enforce (and thus acknowledge) Florid law were to take reports of fraud. “It takes several people to have reported a case of fraud for us to make a report,” one police employee told me when I called to confirm the wayward policy. The statement demonstrates not only corruption, but also a sordid breach of rationality, for if no initial reports of fraud by a person against another are allowed, then it would be impossible to make a complaint after several other people have done so regarding the same culprit. Incredibly, that same police employee nevertheless maintained that in Florida, reports of fraud are made to the police local departments.

That same squalid department also has a policy that landlords, including local individuals and property-management company employees, can enter rented residential space at any time for any reason because, as I heard when I called to confirm, “there is no such thing as trespassing on a person’s own property.” The department even lies to residents by claiming that neither the town nor Florida has any laws protecting tenants from what is in fact trespassing. The Largo police department took the decision to ignore section 82 of the Florida statutes, which stipulates the conditions under which a property-owner can enter leased premises. The sheer extraordinariness of the lie should not be overlooked, for a brazen, hardened corrupt mentality can be inferred, especially when wielded like a club by police employees who have sworn an oath to uphold rather than ignore and lie about the law.

As for Florida’s Law Enforcement Agency, the official line is that there is no state-level agency in Florida that oversees local police departments; the internal affairs offices of local police departments are the only avenue for complaints. That such a pertainent agency can so easily be coopted by their “brothers in arms” opens up the ethical problem of a conflict of interest. The office of Lori Berman (D), Minority Leader of the Florida Senate, also insists that no state-level avenue for complaints by residents of local police corruption exists; only the towns and counties could take such complaints. In investigating this problem by speaking with one of Berman’s employees, I suggested that federal oversight of corrupt local police departments is also possible. The result was a patronizing, “Now let’s slow down,” reply. I had heard enough, so I called Congresswoman Anna Luna’s office, whose district includes corrupt Largo. I asked which office in the U.S. Department of Justice I could contact regarding a corrupt police department, but was told by one of Luna’s enabling employees, “We have nothing to do with the U.S. Department of Justice.” Enabling the corruption of a local police department is itself a corruption, as is lying about the oversight of federal agencies by the U.S. House of Representatives. 

There is a saying in philosophy, “turtles all the way down.” A thread of corruption extending from local fraud, a lying local police department unwilling to uphold (or even acknowledge) the law, the state of Florida that is presumably unconnected from local agencies or departments, and federal office-holders from Florida for whom federal oversight does not exist either in the Congress or the U.S. Department of Justice qualifies as the epitome of systemic corruption. Just as an unethically dysfunctional culture of a company like Arthur Anderson, Wells Fargo, and Enron is notoriously difficult to dislodge or cure with disinfectant, a corrupt local police department encased and enabled at the state and Congressional level is as intractable as they come, utterly impervious to correction and reform. Translucent sunlight may be in short supply in the sunshine state.

---

1. Gisele Galoustian, “Study Finds Police Misconduct ‘Hotspots’ Across Florida,” News Desk, Florida Atlantic University, July 30, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Is Europe in Civilizational Decline?

Does the E.U. itself instantiate a decline in European civilization? So says a National Security Strategy for the United States released by the Trump administration in December, 2025. That report also claims that migration to Europe was in the process of causing European nations to face “civilizational erasure.” That is to say, the European nation-state was by the end of 2025 facing existential threats due to the E.U. and migration. The report also highlights the loss of democracy in Europe, due both to the E.U. usurping the governmental sovereignty of the states and the clamping down on voices on the right in Europe. I contend that the report contains a sufficient number of fallacies that it can reasonably be dismissed as bias ideology under the subterfuge of national security.

The report “proposes to ‘cultivate resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.’”[1] This can be interpreted as an intent to aid Orbán’s anti-E.U. strategy in Hungary and to encourage other governors of E.U. states to resist the E.U.’s exercise of even its existing exclusive competencies, or enumerated powers (i.e., as per the dual-sovereignty feature of that federal system). To hamstring President Von der Leyen’s efforts to aid Ukraine, for example, “kills two birds with one stone,” as the saying goes, because in keeping the E.U. from strengthening, Ukraine’s strength against Russia is also held back.

The report finds “subversion of democratic processes” in Europe, and claims that the E.U. undermines “political liberty and sovereignty.”[2] This would be news to the European Parliament, whose representatives, like those in the U.S. House of Representatives, are elected directly by citizens and thus represent them, rather than even their respective states (the European Council and the Council of Ministers do the latter, as the U.S. Senate does in the U.S.). So, the E.U.’s bicameralism, if anti-democratic, means that the U.S. Congress also suffers a democracy deficit such that most Congressional powers should be returned to the American member states.

Whereas in confederal systems of public governance, democracy is only at the state level, which by the way is fine because the states retain all governmental sovereignty, federal systems characterized by dual sovereignty (i.e., governmental sovereignty being split or divided between the federal and state levels, or subsystems) should have democracy at both levels, rather than just at the state level. This is true of the E.U. grace á the European Parliament, even though its powers could stand to be augmented and those of the European Council lessened so as to enhance the democratic legitimacy of the E.U. even more.

Aside from the erroneous perspective that the E.U. is itself a reduction in European democracy, Trump’s claim that European migration policies had been “transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence” also warrants critique.[3] Does the administration mean to claim that migration policies have been causing birthrates to drop? The application of reason alone can easily dispel such a claim. The same goes for self-confidence, though there may be more to the claim that mass migration dilutes national identities if enough of the new arrivals refuse to integrate culturally. Furthermore, such a dilution is qualitatively different than any from a new-found sense of identifying as Europeans, which, although coming along slowly, is facilitated by the very existence of the European Union. That is to say, even if cultural diversity within a member state is not desirable, identifying increasingly as European rather than merely by member state has the advantage of making war within at least Western Europe less likely in the future. Additionally, identifying culturally as a European can aid indirectly in efforts to enhance the E.U.’s foreign policy and defense competencies, given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Surely Europeans in some of the E.U.’s eastern states would not lament feeling more European and less exclusively of their respective states if that meant that the united action of the E.U. would be more likely to be augmented to include defense without state veto-power standing in the way at the federal level. In short, criticism of migration and the E.U. should not be conflated.

As for free speech, in 2025 it came under threat arguably more as anti-genocide protesters were being arrested as if they were promoting violence rather than protesting against Israel ironically for having been so violent, and with impunity internationally. That the Trump administration had been enabling Israel’s genocide and perhaps holocaust explains why the report ignores the arrests, especially in Germany and Britain, of human-rights protestors while complaining as if Orban has been made into a scapegoat in the European Union even though he has serially violated E.U. law. His support of Russia and criticism of Ukraine, no doubt related to Hungary’s reliance on Russian energy, may have something to do with the report’s “finding” that free speech in Europe has been compromised by forces on the political left rather than the pro-Zionist right. Recently, I encountered such denialism in a coffee shop from a native South African man, whose daughter attends Columbia University. The man insisted that all of the images of destruction in Gaza have been created by AI, and that in actuality, the residents there have been eating well. Regardless of our political disagreement regarding enabling a genocide, I was stunned that his perspective was so divorced from even credible media reports. A European reading Trump’s National Security report might have the same reaction, especially concerning migration causing a drop in birthrates. Such denialism, from ideology, with even credible, mainstream journalism being relegated as illusionary, may be the real sign of a civilizational decline.

Given the impotence of the United Nations to combat the militaristic aggressiveness of Israel and Russia, the collective action that is possible by means of the E.U. can be regarded as a good thing, even though the member-states, or “nations,” would need to give over more governmental sovereignty. Due to the existence of the European Parliament, a democratic legislative chamber, a transfer of additional governmental sovereignty from the states to the Union would not mean that Europe is less democratic. In fact, adding the Parliament to state legislatures means more democracy, with democracy being able to exercise more of a check on itself (i.e., the Parliament on the state legislatures).  Of course, no political union is perfect, or ever can be, and the Parliament could stand to be given more authority in the making of law, so to strengthen the democratic institution at the federal level. Were the Trump administration really for democracy in Europe, the report would include this proposal rather than go with the erroneous claim that democracy only exists, or should only exist, at the state level. Moreover, were the Trump administration to avoid making political category mistakes, the report would compare the E.U. with the U.S., and thus be able to make helpful proposals to strengthen both unions of states. Even though Europeans may bristle at this axis of comparison, my motive in writing is to make such proposals for the good both of Europeans and Americans, for we are more alike in what we value than we sometimes realize.

---

1. Andrew Naughtie, “Trump Administration Warns Europe of ‘Civilisational Decline’ in New National Security Strategy,” Euronews.com, 5 December 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

A Reparations Loan or Common Debt: Undercut by State Rights

“State rights” was a common refrain by the eleven U.S. member states who sought to exit in 1861; the underlying fear was that the exclusive competencies, or enumerated powers, of the U.S., combined with the numerous accessions of new states, were already compromising the power of the eleven states to protect their economies from “encroachment.” In 1858, for instance, a tariff disadvantageous to those economies had been passed in spite of the “Southern” objections in the U.S. Senate. Had each member state had a veto, rather than just the ability to filibuster, the eleven states would have been able to protect the viability of their respective economies from encroachment by the Union. To be sure, the state rights claim that the U.S. was still just a bloc, as had been the case from 1781-1789 under the Articles of Confederation, was sheer denial, for the U.S. Constitution instituted a new kind of federalism—partly national, partly international—based on dual sovereignty, wherein both the member states and the Union have a portion of governmental sovereignty. It is this form of federalism, “modern federalism,” that the Europeans adopted in creating the European Union because the E.U. has exclusive competencies. But whereas the shift made by the Americans in the eighteenth century left the state-veto behind at the Union level, the Europeans retained the veto, which at the very least works against the effective operation of modern federalism. The arduous and much delayed task on a reparations loan for Ukraine in spite of the self-interested objection—and thus promised veto—of one state is a case in point. Even the alternative of the E.U. issuing debt faced state-level opposition, as was the case in the U.S. in the 1790s, but in that case, the self-interested states that were relatively clear of debt could not stop the issuance because none of those states could wield a veto at the federal level. This is important because back then, the American states were still widely viewed as countries by their respective inhabitants. “I must fight for my country,” General Lee told Lincoln in 1861, referring to Virginia. A refresher on American history could help Europeans cross the Rubicon to a more internally consistent modern federalism. Whether Euroskepticism or States’ Rights, the ideology, as etched into the E.U.’s Basic Law, is responsible for Van der Leyen’s headaches in getting the E.U. to put Ukraine in a position of strength against the Russian invaders.

A Union of states that allows a self-interested state to block federal action that is in the good of the whole Union is weak. So, when Ursula von der Leyen said late in 2025 that the European Commission would provide Belgium with sweeping guarantees to unblock a controversial reparations loan for Ukraine, a state official representing Belgium countered that the Commission’s proposals “do not address our concerns in a satisfactory manner. It is not acceptable to use the money and leave us alone facing the risks.”[1] That Belgium’s government could wield its veto gives “not acceptable” the ring of finality. This is despite the guarantees for Belgium consisting “of bilateral contributions by member states, a backstop by the EU budget, legal safeguards against retaliation and a new prohibition on transferring sovereign assets back to Russia.”[2] Experts could of course weigh in on how failproof these guarantees actually would be.

From the perspective of the E.U.’s federal system, the following statement made by President Von der Leyen is crucial: “We have created a very strong solidarity mechanism where in the very end the Union can intervene, because we want to make very sure to all our member states, but specifically also to Belgium, that we will share the burden in a fair way, as it is the European way.”[3] The problem is that to state officials, relying only on “the European way” was insufficient; the veto in the European Council and the Council of Ministers was also felt to be necessary for self-protection. Hence Belgium’s language includes “not acceptable.” Mistrust of the E.U. may be behind at least some of the resistance of the states to agree to an expansion of qualified majority voting.

For the eleven U.S. member states who tried in vain to exit the U.S. in 1861, another kind of qualified majority voting in the U.S. Senate was deemed to be insufficient to safeguard the Southern agrarian economies based on Plantation-level slave-labor. But for the E.U.’s state-veto, we have to go back to the disastrous Articles of Confederation Between the Several States, wherein the U.S. depended on voluntary financial contributions from the states and there was no common debt. The state-veto that is justified in confederal systems by the fact that all of the governmental sovereignty is retained by the states is toxic in modern federalism because the federal level is too prone to being hamstrung even with regard to proposals that are in the interests of the whole even if not in the self-interest of each and every state. A part should not be able to upend the common good.

That Von der Leyen had to go to such lengths that Belgium would have guarantees for its financial interest in attracting sovereign wealth funds in the future is indicative of just how toxic the state-veto mechanism is, especially when Russia was succeeding in invading Ukraine for years by the end of 2025 when the E.U. was yet again proposing a reparations loan (or common debt). This point alone should disabuse any State Rights folks from clutching so tight to the veto. Also, in a union of states, sometimes a state “takes one for the team.” This is true solidarity. “Man up,” may be the relevant expression, given Belgium’s intransigence, but, then again, I’m an American, hence rather crude and thus unbecoming at a European dinner party. “Lose the veto, guys,” I would readily and flatly say amid polite, too polished conversation.

The problem is that no one likes to give up power unless in a crisis, and an invasion to the east is evidently not a crisis. It may be that, like the Schengen Agreement and the Stability Pact, an exogenous “more closer union” may need to be formed by the more federalist-leaning states, sans the sordid veto, for another budget as well as foreign and defense policy. Instead of the 55% in qualified-majority voting (QMV), perhaps 60%, which matches the percent needed in the U.S. Senate to overcome a filibuster, could be used as a compromise. This is not to say that the E.U. and U.S. should converge; the Europeans are smart to fear the sort of consolidation at the Union level that eclipses any sort of federalism, and thus needed space for the states to act as per their respective cultures and ideologies. The American case clearly demonstrates that a citizenry giving primary loyalty to the state level cannot be relied upon as a safeguard in the distant future against creeping encroachments by the Union on the sovereignty retained by the member states. Even so, whereas the U.S. by 2025 had lapsed too close to consolidation at the expense of federalism, the E.U. risked dissolution by states plying themselves away from an ineffectual, internally hamstrung Union, for no one likes to be a part of self-inflicted weakness. Nietzsche taught us this.

---

1. Jorge Liboreiro, “Von der Leyen Pushes Ahead with Reparations Loan for Ukraine as Belgium Maintains Its Opposition,” Euronews.com, December 3, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.