Whereas when the U.S. responds
to natural disasters abroad, the resources of all 50 states are combined in a
federal-level response, the E.U.’s Civil Protection Mechanism limits the federal
level to coordination and instead relies on the states to deploy resources,
including personal. I contend that the European arrangement is more in keeping
with federalism than is the federal-only arrangement of the Americans.
Moreover, involvement at both federal and state levels reflects and facilitates
one of the benefits of federalism, wherein each level has the strength to act
as a check on the other. Programs in which the federal level coordinates and
the state governments deploy can help keep a federal system from lapsing into a
“one-size-fits-all” consolidated rather than federal system. The U.S. could
stand to take a lesson in this respect.
Severely impacted by
earthquakes of 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude and with more than 50,000 people still
missing, Venezuela welcomed the first E.U. emergency responders on 27 June,
2026. Deploying “rescue teams and other emergency assistance to Venezuela,” the
European Commission relied initially on eight states who actually did the
deploying, with the Commission only coordinating for a united response.[1]
In other words, the eight states “mobilized for deployment through the E.U.
civil protection mechanism.”[2]
Separately, the E.U. “also activated its Copernicus satellite service to ‘emergency
mapping mode,’ which provides free of charge data in cases of natural and
man-made disasters around the world.”[3]
The E.U. thus acted on its own with regard to one program while being limited
to activating and coordinating state-level deployments in another program. In
other words, it was not a federal-only show.
To be sure, direct involvement
of state governments abroad could potentially destabilize federal foreign
policy and even undercut it, as was the case when Viktor Orbán of the E.U. state
of Hungary visited Russian President Putin in Moscow as the Van Der Leyen
administration was attempting to pressure Putin into pulling his troops and
weapons out of Ukraine. It can be asked, therefore, whether the government officials
in Caracas would feel obliged to the E.U. or to any of the state governments as
a result of the emergency assistance. If the latter, then limiting the Commission
to merely coordinating, rather than sending its own personnel and resources,
could be risky in terms of the E.U. being able to negotiate with foreign governments
in regard to federal foreign policy.
Assuming the risk is nugatory,
then the benefits of the federal-level institution merely activating and then
coordinating to the federal system itself could be realized without much of a
drawback. The federal level in a federal system wherein governmental sovereignty
is divided between the two levels (i.e., not a confederation, in which the
states are fully sovereign) is in an excellent position to coordinate,
including taking the decision to activate a program, and the state-level governments
are well suited to deploying personnel and resources, and the benefit to those
states in terms of federalism lies in taking part rather than remaining on the
sidelines while federal agencies act and thus gain power that could, if aggregated
over time, result in an unbalanced federal system in which power at the federal
level enables it to dominate the state governments such that the latter could
no longer act as a check on the power wielded at the federal level.
When the E.U. activated its
two programs to help Venezuela with the Commission restrained to coordinating
state-level deployments, the U.S. was about to celebrate 250 years since
thirteen British colonies in North America declared themselves to be sovereign
countries. Those countries did not even ratify a treaty that established a
confederation of continued national sovereignties under the Articles of Confederation
until 1781, and then to delegate some of their respective governmental
sovereignties until eight years after the commencement of the Articles. By late
June, 2026, however, when the Commission activated its two programs for the
benefit of Venezuelans by relying on state-level deployments in one of the
programs, the American federal system of dual sovereignty had gone severely
off-track due to too much of an imbalance of power between the Union and the
states. The consolidation of power by the U.S. at the expense of that of the
state governments impaired the ability of the latter to act as a check on
abuses of power at the federal level. It is in precisely this respect that the
Commission’s coordinating role is so important, lest the E.U. follow its
American cousin towards a lopsided federalism, for balance is a key feature of
this system of public governance.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
