Because the “the EU is built on
consensus at 27” states,[1]
by 2026 it had become painfully obvious to Europe’s elite that its Union had come
to harbor a great disadvantage in terms of united or collective action because political
consensus can be elusive even at 27 states, each of which could result to a
veto on reforms at the federal level, with enlargement of the Union from 27 on
the horizon. Something had to be done, given the intransigence of the principle
of unanimity in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Direct
access of the state governments at the federal level could stave off too much
federal encroachment on the prerogatives of the state governments, but the
costs associated with this safeguard were becoming too high. Therefore, in February,
2026, E.U. state and federal officials met to give added weight to something
called “two-track Europe.” In actuality, there were already more than two
tracks in the European Union. Although complex, the means of releasing the Union
from the high bar needed to achieve unanimity or even consensus among the several
states could well save the Union from the paralysis of division. The outdated
premise that united action should only be allowed when there is no division had
become too utopian for federal Europe. Multiple-speed Europe in the E.U. is actually
more in line with the E.U.’s federal system already being genuine.
In February, 2026, “frustrations
about the pace of [economic] reforms prompted” more interest in groups of states
moving forward with respect to federal legislation that would be binding only
on those states.[2] Mario
Draghi, a former head of the European Central Bank, “recommended exploring the
use of enhanced cooperation to ‘move faster’ in high-priority areas such as the
Savings and Investment Union, the single market and energy prices.”[3]
Already, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), patent and divorce
law, the Schengen Area and even the euro itself constituted examples of federal
law binding on some states but not on others. The term, “enhanced cooperation”
is misleading, for it omits the important point that the states falling under a
federal law are obliged to abide by it. This point is an important one, especially
in the case of the Schengen Agreement. The E.U. already had a genuine federal
system, meaning that dual sovereignty was already the case.
Undergirding the creative
approach to federalism—more creative than the unitary approach of the U.S.—were
informal blocs of E.U. states, “such as the ‘Frugal Four’ and the ‘Friends of
Cohesion,’” the Weimar Triangle, the MED9, the Visegrad group, and the
Nordic-Baltic Eight.[4]
Perhaps the easiest comparison to the U.S. is the bloc of Great Lake states
that must all sign off on fresh-water being taken by other states from the
Great Lakes. Given the climatic and cultural differences that exist between the
American states, more such blocs would not be a bad idea. The key would be that
relevant federal law would only apply to the states in a given bloc. The
binding nature of the respective law renders both the E.U. and U.S. as
something more than blocs, of course. Creative arrangements within a
genuine federal system does not stop the system from being federal; rather,
such arrangements fit well with the fact that federal systems are tailor-made
precisely for cases in which interstate differences are significant. Rather
than containing “multiple speeds,” as if every bloc should eventually converge
at the most integrated one within the Union, complexity better denotes
the E.U.’s way out of the prison of unanimity. Cases in which a federal system
makes most sense are hardly those in which one size fits all, so the American
doctrine that a federal law must apply to every state is actually inferior.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
