Showing posts with label EU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EU. Show all posts

Thursday, July 30, 2026

The European Civil Protection Pool: Insufficient for the E.U.'s Civil Protection Mechanism

The European Civil Protection Pool (ECPP) was established in 2013 to provide emergency response personnel and equipment to combat natural and man-made disasters in Europe. The Pool is the central component of the E.U. Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM). However, the ECPP depends on voluntary contributions from the state governments and even extends beyond the E.U. to include ten European sovereign states. The reliance on voluntary contributions, as well as the distended coverage beyond the E.U. have a weakening impact on the ability of the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive branch, to respond to raging forest fires, as were out of control in several southern states during the summer of 2026. Heat-wave after heat-wave plus decades of those states allowing deadwood to accumulate in the forests (the same error had also exacerbated the massive 1988 fire in Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks in Wyoming) provided a “perfect storm” for raging fires by July. Even the Commission’s emphasis on prevention had not been enough, given the reliance on the states, literally to have enough brush and dead trees culled prior to the hot summer. I contend that the Commission having to rely on the states (and even ten other countries!) to contribute personnel and equipment in the ECPP program, which is in line with the Commission’s typical coordinative approach, is out of step with the E.U.’s actual federal system of dual sovereignty because a mere coordinating role fits what Althusius, in his 1603 text, Political Digest, calls non-plena foedus (non-full federalism: all governmental sovereignty is at the state level).

With hundreds of thousands being “forced to evacuate their homes as flames spread across several regions” of the E.U., questions were being raised in late July, 2026 “over whether Europe’s crisis management systems [were] adapting fast enough.”[1] In two E.U. states alone, more than 120,000 hectares had burned. Even though E.U. President Von der Leyen wrote at the time, “My thoughts are with the firefighters who bravely battle the flames and with all those [people who have been] evacuated,”[2] her first administration had put the emphasis on preventing rather than fighting fires under the assumption that if the fires are prevented, then not much effort and money would be needed to combat fires once they are underway. The problem, however, was not limited to a faulty policy-orientation at the federal level. Crucially, the European Civil Protection Pool in the UCPM relied on voluntary contributions from the states, and even other countries beyond the purview of the Commission! To be sure, several states, along with Turkey, sent firefighters and equipment to the fires, but not soon enough for the fires to have been extinguished when they were small. That the massive scale of the fires could have been anticipated as a result of climate change lays even more culpability on the Commission both in regard to its emphasis on prevention and its unwillingness to propose a federal firefighting force of personnel and equipment under the direct authority of the Commission.

In the early U.S., the Articles of Confederation, in force from 1781-1789, and prior to that, the military alliance, also relied on voluntary contributions by what were sovereign countries known generically as “states” because their permanent forms of government had not yet been decide. General Washington’s complaints to the Continental Congress for want of men and supplies merely frustrated the delegates from the countries whose respective governments had sole discretion on how much to supply to the cause of independence.

From its founding in 1993, the E.U.’s states have shared governmental sovereignty with the federal governmental institutions, including the European Parliament, whose elected representatives represent E.U. citizens rather than the states, and the Commission. Even in the European Council and the Council of Ministers, qualified-majority voting on a significant number of federal enumerated powers, or competencies, represents a transfer of some sovereignty from the states to the Union. The E.U.’s supreme court, the European Court of Justice, also limits state sovereignty, and thus even the authority of the highest state courts. Accordingly, the Commission’s role should go beyond coordinating voluntary contributions from states.

To be sure, it could be argued that it took the U.S. more than a century to treaty a federal income tax, and for the U.S. federal military to outgrow the preponderance of the state armies (the Guards). Even as of 2026, the federal president was obliged to return the state armies to their respective commanders-in-chiefs—the governors of the still semi-sovereign states. Regarding forest fires, it was not until 1849 that the U.S. Department of the Interior was created, and not until 1916 that the U.S. Park Service was established and began fighting forest fires, and not until 2026 that the federal Interior Department launched the U.S. Wildland Fire Service to consolidate what had been decentralized efforts.

In 2026, the predicted impact of a hotter climate on forest fires was obvious in the E.U., even though astonishingly some politicians were still peddling climate-change denial. Referring to “lots of new parliamentarians in the European Parliament” and state-level politicians who were being “being very vocal against climate science and climate action,” Teresa Ribera, the E.U. Commission Vice President, warned at the end of July, 2026 that those politicians were “lying to people” and putting lives at risk.[3] It’s like telling people that they can drink as much whiskey as they want and then drive a car, she added. Perhaps that goes a bit too far, but her point that denying natural science is stupid and even destructive is valid, given all the data and the actual fires that year. She could have added that ideology trumping knowledge is itself dangerous. Volunteering at a San Francisco film festival in California during the summer of 2026, I was stunned when two young lesbian women walking out of the film on my first shift chastised me with, “it doesn’t work that way,” because I had just remarked that the sex scene in the film was homosexual; the label fits because both women in the scene have vaginas. Obviously, the mental state of one or both of those characters does not render the physical act in the scene heterosexual, but this fact didn’t stop the young lesbians from decrying my statement as “inappropriate” from the standpoint their ideology. An elected representative saying, “I don’t believe in climate change,” is just as culpable from the standpoint of knowledge.[4]

Suffice it to say that for several reasons, the E.U. could not patiently wait out a century or more to federalize a fire-fighting capability beyond merely coordinating voluntary contributions from states and other European countries. The expedited basis with which to shift from a state-centric power standpoint to a more balanced federal system does have the advantage of being able to learn from another political union with the same (dual-sovereignty) genus of federalism and thus avoid that union’s over-consolidating federal legislation during the twentieth century. In other words, the Commission could be given more authority with which to directly send personnel and equipment to fires without fear that the E.U. would be on track toward a centralized federal state at the expense of the cultural and political interstate diversity that exists in any empire-scale federal union.

Monday, June 29, 2026

Italy Thwarts E.U. Lawmakers Inspecting an Off-Shore Migrant Centre

On 17 June, 2026, the E.U. formally adopted a federal law, the Return Regulation, that allows states to set up “return hubs” outside of the E.U. for the returning of migrants back to their respective countries. On 29 June, 2026, elected representative in the Greens/EFA party in the E.U.’s parliament “were prevented from carrying out a full inspection of the Italian-run migrant detention centre in Gjadër, northwest Albania—a facility at the center of one of [the E.U.’s] most debated offshore migration experiments.”[1] Even though Albanian police patrolled the perimeter of the facility, that it was Italian-run means that state employees, rather than the foreign police, who were thwarting federal lawmakers in their inspection of the facility even though a federal law rendered the facility legal under federal law. Such obstructionist behavior does not bode well for the E.U.’s federal system, wherein both the federal and state legislative bodies are legitimate.

Rep. Tineke Strik, of the Greens/EFA party, said at the time of the visit, “Today’s visit was very disappointing and disgraceful. The staff really created a lot of obstacles for us.”[2] By “staff,” she likely was referring to the Italians running the facility rather than to the Albanian police outside, for police are never referred to as staff. Also, Albania’s Interior Ministry had “previously stated that the Gjadër centre operates as Italian territory, with Albanian police responsible solely for perimeter security.”[3] So managers from the E.U. state of Italy were the problem from the perspective of the federal delegation. Rep. Strik went on to explain, “We didn’t get any data, they didn’t answer any questions, and we were not allowed to really go into the cells and see what the situation is like.”[4] That a check on the Italian staff by federal officials was needed is evident from Rep. Strik’s finding: “For the people we did manage to speak to here, it’s clear they have problems asking for asylum, and many of them don’t see any way out of a failed system.”[5] Had the elected representatives in the Parliament known on 17 June that the system was “failed,” the proposed legislation likely would have been defeated. After the visit on 29 June, it is likely that a significant number of the representatives who had voted yes were suffering “buyer’s remorse.” So, the visit and inspection served a legitimate and thus valid purpose, and the obstruction that the lawmakers encountered from the Italian staff was inappropriate.

That the visit was stymied by state employees is significant from the standpoint of the E.U.’s federal system as a whole, for one of the chief benefits of federalism is that the federal level can act as a check on abuses of power at the state level, and vice versa. Checks can and should work in both directions for liberty to be protected from tyranny, which can occur at both levels in a federal system, and for the legitimacy of both levels. In fact, that the states rather than E.U. citizens are represented in the European Council (and U.S. states are represented in the U.S. Senate, which is founded on principles of international rather than national law) gives the state level a direct check on federal encroachments on the prerogatives of the several states. That E.U. law (excluding directives, which reply on implementation by the state governments) can have direct effect anywhere on E.U. territory, including inside the Italian detention centre in Albania, acts as a check on the power of states, for they are only semi-sovereign in the E.U. Even qualified-majority voting in the European Council and the Council of Ministers can be viewed as a check on a willful governor (e.g., Viktor Orbán) of a state, whereas the principle of unanimity blocks such a check and thus should be eliminated from the E.U.’s basic legal framework.

To be sure, perhaps the E.U.’s Commission would have been more appropriate than legislators in the Parliament in inspecting the Italian facility, for the Commission is the Union’s executive branch, which sees that federal laws, directives, and regulations are implemented whether by federal agencies or state governments. In contrast, lawmakers—legislators—are forward oriented in terms of creating new law. Had a delegation from the Commission have gone and been stymied, the Commission could have recommended to the bicameral Parliament and European Council that the Return Law be amended in some way that would better protect the human rights of the migrants and require state employees to allow inspections with full disclosure of information to federal officials visiting such facilities “off-shore.” Furthermore, it would be rather unwise for candidate states such as Albania, hosting such facilities to block E.U. officials from entering the facilities run by E.U. states. Fortunately, Albania kept clear of such obstructionism, and the blame can be put squarely on the E.U. state of Italy.

Interestingly, just hours before writing this essay, I showed my book on the E.U. and U.S. federal systems, entitled Essays on Two Federal Empires, whose cover-picture depicts the star-studded flags of the E.U. and U.S. (the stars on both represent states), to a young college student newly arrived in California from Italy. She visibly bristled as if in abject denial when she looked intensely at the picture on the cover. I wonder whether the staff at the Italian facility in Albania presumed that E.U. lawmakers had no right to inspect an Italian facility even though Italy was at the time a semi-sovereign state in the E.U.’s federal system. It was obvious to me that the young woman would barely speak to me after seeing my book’s cover, so obdurate was her state of ideological denial that she may even have presumed that the arrogance was mine. Political socialization, which bears on equivalences, evidently starts early.


1. Rebecca Rommen, “EU Lawmakers Say They Were Blocked from Fully Inspecting Italy’s Migrant Detention Centre in Albania,” Euronews.com, 29 June, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

Sunday, June 28, 2026

E.U. Emergency Assistance to Venezuela: Coordinating Federalism

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.


1. Lucy Davalou, “Europe Send Search and Rescue Personnel to Venezuela in Response to Massive Quakes,” Euronews.com, 27 June, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Tuesday, June 16, 2026

The European Parliament: Rejecting the Council’s Proposed Budget

On 16 June, 2026, the European Parliament rejected the European Council’s proposed budget for the E.U. not only because of the proposal’s €32.8 billion budget-cut, which would reduce the six-year 2028-2034 federal budget even below that which the Commission had proposed, but also because the Council had refused to address the issue of federal-sources of revenue, which was made increasingly salient by the increasing need of funds at the federal level. In seeking to keep the federal institutions dependent on money supplied by the states, the Council, which like the U.S. Senate represents states, can be viewed exploiting a conflict of interest at the expense of the ability of the E.U. to operate even within its given mandates. Put another way, the requirement that the Parliament pass any proposed budget can be viewed as a check on the state-centric Council’s proclivity to put the interest of the parts above the whole—the individual states above the Union.

Although the proposed federal budget by the Council represented a political compromise between states that wanted “substantial cuts” and other states that “asked for an increase of the budget for agriculture and regional funds,” enough of the Parliament’s representatives elected by E.U. citizens, rather than appointed by state governments, deemed the Council’s proposal as insufficient.[1] Those representatives were oriented to adequately funding extant federal programs rather than doing the bidding even of their own states. This translates into an orientation to the common good that is implied in collection action (i.e., the whole) rather than to the interests of parts. Because the €2 trillion proposal by the Commission had already been rejected as insufficient by the Parliament, the Council’s even lower figure can be interpreted as perplexing unless the states were making a statement that any federal branch is apt to overstate the E.U.’s funding needs so the Parliament’s rejection of the Commission’s proposal could and should be ignored.

Consistent with the alleged proclivity of federal governmental institutions to over-state the E.U.’s needed funding was the refusal of the Council “to touch the issue of the budgetary correction mechanisms known as rebates, revenues coming from taxes at the E.U. level, known as own resources, and the principle of making the budget conditional on the rule of law.”[2] Refusing to increase the E.U.’s own access to revenue independent of funds contributed (and thus controlled by) the state governments was essentially a decision to maintain power over the federal institutions and thus render the Union subservient to the states. At the time, MEP Carla Tavares told the press, “We need to make progress on own resources. . . . It is difficult to achieve a strong and renewed budget with cuts and without new own resources.”[3] In other words, the common good as funded federally would be diminished by the refusal of the state-centric Council to even consider new sources of own resources at the federal level. The distinctly state-level interest in maintaining (inordinate) power in the federal system was operating at the expense of the whole. The self-interested decision of the states in the Council to refuse to make budget-outlays conditional on rule-of-law being upheld in a given state also evinces an institutional (or structural) conflict of interest because using the budget so state governments do not disassemble rule-of-law provisions is in the interest of the whole (i.e., the European Union). One state government being able to backslide could easily domino across state-lines, and as all of the delegates at the U.S. federal Convention thought in 1787, allowing dictators at the state level would be incompatible with a democratic Union. So, the refusal of the Council to address the matter of conditionality can be viewed as putting the Union at risk. Fortunately, the members of Parliament were foremost oriented to the good of the Union rather than to protecting state prerogatives even at the expense of the Union.

One of the benefits of federalism is that the federal and state levels can act as checks on each other so as to preserve liberty against the threat of tyranny. The Parliament’s role in being a check on the use of the Council by the state governments to put the interests of the state government officials and their respective governments above the interests of the whole is thus vital in safeguarding the E.U.’s federal system and thus the E.U. itself. Moreover, putting the interests of parts above the whole of which they are parts is never a good idea, for the interests of a whole are not identical to the aggregate of the interests of the parts; the whole is more than the sum of its parts.


1. Eleonora Vasques, “EU Parliament Rejects Member States’ First Draft of Long-Term Budget,” Euronews.com, 16 June, 2026.
2. Ibid, italics added for emphasis.
3. Ibid.

Monday, June 1, 2026

The E.U.’s Immigration “ICE”: The Pros and Cons of State Implementation

On 1 June, 2026, the E.U.’s two legislative chambers agreed informally on text for a law called Return Regulation, which is oriented to facilitating the return of illegal aliens to their respective countries. Both The European Council, the “upper chamber,” and the European Parliament, the “lower” legislative “chamber” (roughly corresponding to the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, respectively) worked in what in American parlance is called a Congressional reconciliation or conference committee to agree to text enabling state police to enter the domiciles of illegal immigrants and state governments to set up detention centers outside of the European Union. That the federal law relegates implementation to the states illustrates just how different E.U. federalism differs from U.S. federalism even though both systems are “modern” rather than confederal in that governmental sovereignty in both unions is split between the federal and state levels. Even though the E.U. after thirty years was like the U.S. after its first thirty years in that most of that sovereignty was at the state level, the use of state governments to implement a federal law differentiates the European federal system from the American one. Both advantages and disadvantages go with leaving implementation largely up to the states.

Imagine if the American Congress had passed a law leaving it up to the state governments to exercise “ICE” enforcement powers to rid the Union of illegal immigrants. In U.S. President Trump’s second term in office, Florida would jump at the chance, whereas states such as Massachusetts, Illinois, and California would refuse to implement the federal law. It would not be difficult to surmise how illegal aliens would work around such a patchwork, at least those with enough money to move to a more preferential state. As a result, the federal rationale—that of eliminating illegal immigrants from U.S. soil—would be compromised. However, the differing political-ideological centers-of-gravity in the several states would get more breathing room, and in empire-scale political unions such as the U.S. and E.U., one legislative size does not fit all. When one is imposed, internal pressure builds up that could eventually blow such a union apart.

Even in the E.U., in which the new law reflected “a broader political shift . . . sometimes backed by the far right . . . pushing for a tougher approach to migration,” states could be said to differ as to the political significance of the far right.[1] Some state governments may for example not find much internal political support for a state law that enables police to search a “place of residence or other relevant premises” of illegal migrants, especially as some NGOs (non-governmental organizations) compared “to the notorious raids conducted by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).”[2] It is not as if the two federal legislative chambers passed the federal law under the assumption that it would be strenuously implemented by every state. “The provision is vague on purpose, to allow a broad interpretation in the different member states. It opens the doors to home raids and also raids in the premises of associations helping migrants and healthcare facilities,” Eleonora Celoria with Asgi, a state-level association of legal experts said at the time of the law’s passage.[3] Celoria’s depiction of the implications highlight just how politically and ethically controversial the law is, and this, I submit, is precisely why the provision is vague on purpose. States could be anticipated to differ on how the law should be implemented “on the ground.” Even though the maximum legal detention period for illegal immigrants waiting to be expatriated back to their respective countries is “extended from six months to two years, with a possible six-month extension and an unlimited duration for persons considered as posing a security risk,” clearly not every state legislature would go with the maximus. The comment made by MEP Mélissa Camara (of the European Parliament) that the legislative text serves “a xenophobic ideology” may resonate more in some states than in others.[4] Hence, the E.U.’s federal system could be said to be healthier than its U.S. counterpart at the time (2026) because the E.U states were legislatively given more breathing room in which to tailor the federal law according to their respective political cultures.

The astute reader may be waiting for “the other shoe to drop,” meaning: what’s the catch? According to E.U. figures, “only 29% of migrants with no legal right to remain” in the E.U “leave the EU.”[5] Illegals were a big problem facing the Union, and leaving enforcement up to whether a given state government favors the proposed legislative text risks creating a legal loophole wherein illegal migrants could simply move to another state where enforcement is lax or utterly lacking. The intentional vagueness in the legislative text makes even no enforcement possible. In California at the time, I was surprised to see a sign outside a popular pizza restaurant indicating that the workers reserved the right to refuse service and entry to ICE police, as if enforcement of U.S. immigration law were up to restaurant workers. Were such law up to the government of California, given the high proportion of registered Democrats over Republicans, it is a safe bet that no enforcement could be passed by the California Senate and Assembly. Contrast this with states such as Oklahoma, Alabama, and Florida! I would even venture to posit that the ideological distance on the issue of illegal immigration between those three states and California is more than existed at the time between E.U. states on the same issue: how, or even whether, illegal immigration should be expunged.

Perhaps my thesis can be generalized to say that giving states in an empire-scale union enough breathing room is inversely related to efficacy at the federal, or Union level. Federalism is a messy business in part because judgment is requisite; there are few easy answers in how to navigate the common good (of the political union) while seeing to it that the states have enough breathing room so their respective residents do not feel suffocated by a one-size-fits-all federal mentality. In other words, modern federalism, whose signature attribute is dual sovereignty, can be said to involve a balancing act. As of 2026, it could be said that the E.U. was doing a better job at that than was the U.S., but at what cost in terms of the interests of the European Union as a whole, which is not a mere aggregate of state interests? This is a dynamic unique to the empire-level, so it does not pertain to E.U. states that have adopted federal systems of their own. No large U.S. states are themselves federal, though in a nod to the Europeans such a prospect is worth entertaining. Even so, the heterogeneity across an empire of 27 or 50 republics dwarfs that which exists even within a large E.U. or U.S. state. This is yet another reason why the E.U. and U.S. should be compared and contrasted, rather than treating a large state in one union as equivalent to the other union. In other words, the U.S. is not a France with a large back yard that stretches across a continent and beyond. Within such an expanse of land, views on immigration can be expected to vary markedly from state to state.


1. Vincenzo Genovese, “EU Greenlights Controversial Return Hubs in ‘Strictest-Ever’ New Migration Law,” Euronews.com, 1 June 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

Thursday, May 28, 2026

California and Florida: Different Political Cultures in the U.S.

As evinced by Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney likening a planned referendum on whether Alberta should vote to separate from the rest of Canada to “Brexit,” in which Britain seceded from the E.U., as if the UK in the European Union were equivalent to Alberta in Canada, political category mistakes can run rampant without being detected as such. Referring to the referendum in the province, Carney said, “That is a very dangerous bluff.” He was “pointing to the turmoil that followed the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union.”[1] The implied false equivalence of Canada and the E.U., as if the former too had been formed out of countries, is as incorrect as that which Carney was more directly assuming between Alberta and Britain. A region of a country, even if the latter has a federal system, is not equivalent to a country that joins a political union such as the E.U. and U.S. That Britain was once the host kingdom in the British Empire, and thus equivalent to other members of the empire, including Ireland and Virginia, does not mean that the UK as a state in the E.U. was equivalent to the latter, or to other political unions consisting of early-modern-scale countries.

Even before they became independent countries, the thirteen British colonies that would rebel were considered to be an empire within the British empire, and such an incongruity was correctly believed to render the latter unstable[2]. Empires consist of (early-modern) kingdom-scale polities, rather than of empires. The distinction between a kingdom and empire was well established, as in Althusius’s 1603 book, Political Digest, on federalism. It would not surprise Althusius at all that the countries that became members of the U.S. would continue to have their own political cultures rather than be fully homogenized at the empire-level.  The ideological conviction that the 50 states are somehow very similar culturally, as if linguistics were the exclusive basis of cultural differences, and thus that the U.S. is equivalent to an E.U. state, is empirically false (as are most ideological biases).

On May 27, 2026, the head of government of California vowed “to tax any payouts that California residents receive from a $1.776 billion ‘anti-weaponization’ fund that Donald Trump secured in a settlement with his own [U.S.] Justice Department.”[3] Newsom said, “Anyone from California that receives any of those funds, we want to tax 100 percent of those proceeds.” A similar proposal had been made in New York by NY Senator Mike Gianaris. It would be a grave mistake to assume that such a bill were also being entertained by the Florida legislature, and the reason goes beyond partisanship between the two major American political parties.

That Newsom would make public his proposal means that he believed that the political center of gravity in California favored going after not just corruption generally, but also efforts to reward people who had rioted at the federal Capitol building as the states’ respective votes for U.S. president were being counted in 2020. State populations differed appreciably on the ideology behind Trump’s “MAGA” populist movement. That movement had a much lower percentage of believers in say California and Massachusetts, than in Florida and Oklahoma. Alaska and Hawaii provide yet another stark contrast on how pervasive support for MAGA was as of 2026.

The sheer ideological difference between the centers of political gravity of those two republics resonates with the theoretical claim that the heterogeneity between kingdom-level polities in an empire is not just a matter of degree, but, rather, a leap, from the cultural differences that exist within any one of those polities. This is why federalism, which intentionally includes governmental means of managing inter-state cultural diversity, originated with empires rather than kingdoms, and is better suited to empires even though some early-modern-scale kingdom-level polities have federal systems (e.g., Germany, Switzerland, Belgium). The cultural differences between E.U. states is a leap rather than just a degree more than such differences within Germany and even Belgium within which different languages are spoken (in Flanders and Wallonia, respectively). The practical need to take account of cultural differences is greater in E.U. governance than at the state level, and thus federalism is more valuable—more fitting—at the E.U.-state interface than within a given state.

Back to the U.S., on the very day on which Newsom announced his proposal to tax all of the proceeds of Trump’s “slush fund” to his base that had sought to interfere with the role of Congress in counting the ballots of electors from the States for in the federal presidential election, Ron DeSantis, the head of Florida’s government, announced his proposed tax cut that would vastly increase the exemption from $50,000 to $250,000 on property taxes in Florida. Ben Albritton, the president of the Florida Senate, said, “I can’t think of a more meaningful way to celebrate America’s 250 [year anniversary of the Declaration of Independence than] the passage of $250,000 in tax relief for every Florida homeowner.”[4] Both men were betting that any drop in school budgets from the drop in tax revenue would be less important to most voters than paying less in property taxes. Here again, a distinct political ideology was in play—one that would get considerably less broadcast air-time in California where proportionally more voters believed in a more expansive role of government and thus for government spending by which public goods could be provided even if taxes are high. To be sure, the ideological divide between favoring tax-cuts versus government spending on public goods is an old one; my point is that the peoples in the American states differed, at least as of 2026, significantly on which side should be valued more. In fact, the European states may have differed much less in this respect even though different languages were spoken! So much for the false claim that cultural differences depend on linguistic differences! Belgium and the Netherlands were much more alike on this axis of political ideology that were California and Florida. Moreover, the differences within a given state, whether of the E.U. or U.S., were a leap down from the differences between the states.

Therefore, Alberta leaving Canada (or the southern region known as Egypt leaving Illinois—which has been attempted five times in Illinois history) is not like Britain seceding from the Union. Even though Canada’s regions admittedly may differ culturally, an empire consists of many polities and thus the diversity between the polities in an empire is greater than in Canada. Put another way, Canada would come into the U.S. as states just as every other country that has become a member of the U.S. has (and territories that became states are legally assumed to have been sovereign countries). Neither Texas nor Hawaii merged with the existing U.S., so neither would Canada merge with the United States. Neither would Canada come in as just one state, but this is not to say that each province would translate into a state; even if each one would, Canada still could not be classified as an empire (unlike the E.U. and U.S., both of which have many country-level republics).  


1. Mike Blanchfield and Sue Allan, “Carney Warms Alberta Not to Pull a “Brexit,” Politico, May 25, 2026.
2. Skip Worden, British Colonies Forge an American Empire.
3.Tyler Katzenberger and Nick Reisman, “Newsom Vows 100 Percent Tax on DOJ ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ Payouts,” Politico, May 27, 2026.
4.. Gary Fineout, “In One of His Final Acts, DeSantis Calls For Vote on Sweeping Florida Property Tax Cut,” Politico, May 27, 2026.

Monday, May 4, 2026

The E.U.: A Political Union

Strong’s The Antifederalist is a series of essays critical of the American federal system in which governmental sovereignty is “dual,” meaning that both the Union and the member-states have at least some such sovereignty that the other cannot abolish or override. Had more credence been paid to the arguments in that text, perhaps the state governments would have more power at the federal level to protect their retained sovereignty from federal encroachment. The drafting of the E.U. paid more heed to those arguments in terms of safeguarding state sovereignty by considerable direct involvement of state officials at the federal level. Even so, Euroskeptics have warned of a centralized state in the process, and the U.S. has furnished them with an actual instance of a nearly consolidated empire-scale federal system. The warnings may thus be valid even with the additional safeguards that the E.U. has but the U.S. lacks, at least as of 2026, but claims that the E.U. does not have a federal system and is not a political union of states ring hollow as they are utterly false. So too, but the way, is the mislabeling of the E.U. as a bloc. The E.U.’s parliament alone knocks out all three of these ideological claims.

E.U. citizens elect representatives to the parliament, just as U.S. citizens elect representatives to the U.S. House of Representatives. This itself is inherently political, rather than merely economic, in nature.The resolutions and laws passed by the parliament are also not limited to economic measures. As a case in point, the parliament’s resolutions against the government of Azerbaijan furnish us with a case in point.

By May 1, 2026, the E.U.’s parliament had adopted 14 resolutions critical of Azerbaijan. The latest of those “called for the right of return of Armenians who [had] fled the region in 2023 after an armed conflict [had broken] out over a disputed region. [The resolution] described the detention of Armenian prisoners of war by Azerbaijan as ‘unjust’ and urged their ‘immediate and unconditional release.’”[1] Both the detention and the parliament’s reaction to it are inherently political, rather than concerning trade. Put another way, that which is decried as unjust in the resolution is political; it is not as if the parliament’s resolution opposed an unjust trading agreement between the E.U. and Azerbaijan.

The E.U.’s parliament was even viewed by the government of Azerbaijan as a political (legislative) chamber rather than as a trading organization befitting a bloc. “Hikmet Hajiyev, assistant to the President of Azerbaijan and head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Presidential Administration, called the European Parliament resolution as ‘a diplomatic disgrace and diplomatic failure,’ and accused members of the parliament of ‘creating obstacles to a peace process.”[2] Besides the fact that peace is a political rather than an economic concept, that the European Parliament was viewed as having engaged in diplomacy, albeit allegedly very badly according to Hajiyev, implies the more fundamental or basic understanding that the parliament is a political body. Diplomacy is that which governments conduct on political matters in international relations.

Therefore, the European Parliament has been viewed by government officials of other countries as a political body engaging in political acts, rather than as a bloc or international organization oriented to trade. As for how that chamber views itself, Roberta Metsola, who is the “Speaker” (translated into American terms for easy comparison) or elected head of the European Parliament, pushed back against the charge that the representatives in that legislative chamber had been obsessing on Azerbaijan by making explicit the political nature of the parliament. Heading to the chamber’s floor to make an impromptu statement, Metsola insisted, “We will never change the way we work, even if it is uncomfortable,” meaning not convenient for people in other countries.[3] Of utmost importance in terms of the parliament’s very legitimacy politically, she had first said: “The European Parliament is a directly elected democratic body, with resolutions adopted by a majority.”[4] The assertion that the E.U. is indeed a political union is satisfied by this statement alone, for that which Metsola described is inherently political.

Furthermore, that the body’s representatives are directly elected, rather than appointed by state governments, means that the E.U.’s federal level is not merely a collection or bloc of states. Just as E.U. law has direct effect on E.U. citizens (and other residents and even tourists), so too do E.U. citizens have political access via elected representatives at the federal level, rather than just through state officials in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Also, through those elected representatives, E.U. citizens can kick out an existing administration at the Commission without the say of state officials.

In short, whereas the European Council and the Council of Ministers, like the U.S. Senate, are founded on international principles, the European Parliament, like the U.S. House of Representatives, is national and thus governmental, in its constitutive principles. This hybrid federal system, differing as it does from a confederation of sovereign states, was invented by political compromise in 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is detailed in James Madison’s Notes.

To be sure, Euroskeptics would surely bolt from these arguments in utter fury, but I contend that the promulgated axis of political comparison is valid even if it is seldom uncovered and made explicit. The distending nature of ideology finds it easy to engage in denial, especially in the domains of politics and religion. Indeed, the E.U. itself is firmly within the political domain, and on this point Hajiyev and Metsola are in agreement, for it is the very premise on which the statements of both officials are based. San Francisco doesn’t matter.


1. Vincenzo Genovese, “Roberta Metsola Clashes with Azerbaijan’s Ailyev at European Summit in Armenia,” Euronews.com, 4 May, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

Friday, April 24, 2026

On Retaining the States’ Veto-Power in the European Council: Sovereignty vs. Democracy

Both the filibuster in the U.S. Senate and the veto in the European Council reflect the act that the respective states were sovereign and retain a portion of that governmental sovereignty that has not been delegated to the respective Unions. But whereas the American filibuster is compatible with a federal system based on dual-sovereignty (states and union), the European veto is not; rather, each state having a veto is at home in a confederation, which is characterized by the states retaining their sovereignty rather than having given up some in becoming a state. In April 2026 shortly after Viktor Orbán had lost his bid for re-election in the E.U. state of Hungary, the E.U.’s foreign minister argued publicly that the states’ veto in the European Council (and the Council of Ministers) runs contrary to the democratic principle of majority rule. The prerogative of retained and residual governmental sovereignty was essentially being pitted against a fundamental principle of democracy.

Kaja Kallas, the E.U.’s foreign minister, castigated the requirement of unanimity in the European Council (in competencies, or enumerated powers, in which qualified majority voting does not apply) because the votes of 26 state governments can be hijacked by a single holdout. Her assumption is that majority-rule rather than the rule by one (holdout) is fundamental to democracy, whether direct or representative. Referring to the vetoes that had been exercised by the then-outgoing governor of the E.U. state of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, Kallas pointed out that the Council doing what only one state wants, “not what the 26 [others] want . . . is not really democracy.”[1] In fact, one-state rule can be thought of as autocratic rather than democratic. If so, then it follows that the remainder of sovereignty retained by the states as veto power is antithetical to democracy. Although both principles are valid in a federal system characterized by dual-sovereignty rather than all sovereignty being retained by the states, I contend that a sufficient recognition of the retained sovereignty of the states lies in the voting method by qualified majority, and furthermore, that such a method is not in conflict with democracy because even a super-majority is majority rule.

To be sure, the E.U.’s basic (constitutional, or government framework) law provides “a legal pathway to move from unanimity to qualified majority voting. However, . . . such a shift itself requires unanimous consent.”[2] Such a blatant “Catch 22” suggests that the state governments were exploiting a conflict of interest in devising and approving the pathway as if they were states in a confederation, which, unlike modern federalism, according to Kenneth Wheare’s Federal Government, involves no transfer of limited sovereignty (i.e., enumerated powers) to the federal level. That the hamstringing non-qualified-majority-vote policy and legislation at the federal level could easily have been foreseen indicates a proclivity to put the interests of their own states, and the states altogether, above federal initiatives for the good of the whole, which is more than merely the sum of the parts. In fact, the veto itself may imply that the whole is merely such a sum.

Qualified-majority voting enables sufficient unity at the level of the whole and enables the federal level to exercise its exclusive and shared competencies, or powers. Kallas said, “we need to be united and able to take decisions.”[3] So unity should not be so total that decisions cannot be taken and implemented at the federal level, which consists not only of the European Council (and the Council of Ministers), but also the Commission, Parliament, and supreme court (i.e., the ECJ), which are not so beholden to state-level interests that can differ from the interests of the whole, as represented by the Union.

The counter-argument made by Charles Michel (interestingly at the time of Kallas’s interview) in favor of keeping the veto in the Council that he had chaired from 2019 to 2024 is spurious. Firstly, he undercut his argument against the pressing need to shelve the veto mechanism by predicting that the European Council would be not be more unified on Ukraine following Orbán’s departure because other governors “share elements of his political stance, including on Ukraine.”[4] Slovakia, for instance, could easily step into Orbán’s shoes. This prediction makes Kallas’ point even more urgent!

Michel went on to claim that “the ‘European Dream’ depends on collective agreement among all 27 member states.”[5] Such would be the case were the E.U. a confederation of sovereign states, such as the Articles of Confederation were as the treaty made by the sovereign countries forming the U.S. until 1789, but the E.U.’s federal level enjoys exclusive and a shared-portion of competencies, or enumerated powers, and such sovereignty does not depend on unanimity at the state level because the states are not fully sovereign. The political-type category mistake in which a modern federal system of dual sovereignty is supposed to be a confederation was ultimately responsible for why Britain seceded from the Union; as prime minister, David Cameron mischaracterized the E.U. as but one of the “networks” of which Britain had joined. It is no wonder that a significant number of the Brits chaffed at even the limited governmental sovereignty that the E.U. itself enjoyed at the expense of full state sovereignty.

Michel’s “European dream” involves yet another problematic claim. “If you stop trying to involve every [state],” he said, “you risk weakening the EU’s weight on the international stage.”[6] This statement incorrectly assumes that any state on the losing end of a qualified-majority vote in the Council is not involved in the process, and that the E.U.’s very credibility on the world stage is not undercut when one state hinders federal action in foreign and defense affairs. Even as Russia continued to invade Ukraine for over four years, that the E.U. could not support Ukraine militarily made the Europeans look weak and unprincipled on such an obvious case of unprovoked military invasion.

Moreover, I dispute Michel’s utopian fantasy that 27 governors of states with differing interests, both economic and geopolitical, will nonetheless be unanimous enough on specific federal policy and legislative proposals for the principle of unanimity to be viable (i.e., workable enough) for the E.U. to exercise its own competencies that are subject to unanimity. Put another way, for the states to have delegated a significant amount of governmental sovereignty to the E.U. and yet selfishly, as per state-specific interests, to hold onto unanimity on many important matters being considered in the federal-level councils constitutes wanting to have one’s cake and eat it too. Such a capricious mentality does not deserve credibility on the world’s stage.

To be sure, Michel warned against governors misusing (to excess) the veto-power of their respective states in the Council, noting that the veto should only be used as it was intended to be used, “only when vital [state] interests are at stake.”[7] Given that the authority has been up to the governors themselves whether to use their power, however, an expansionist wielding of the vetoes should have been anticipated at Lisbon. Besides over-valuing even petty interests, as if they should outweigh the interests of the whole (Union), governors could easily invent such interests in solidarity with a foreign foe of the E.U. and thus undercut the Union itself on the world stage. I am referring here to Orbán’s relationship with Russia’s President Putin—Orbán even went to Moscow, undercutting President Von der Leyen’s policy against Putin’s militaristic aggression unprovoked in Ukraine.

The Von der Leyen administration was wise in looking outward to the credibility of the E.U. and its long-term functioning as a federal rather than state-centric system of governance, whereas Michel was entrenched in a status quo premised on fallacious arguments and even a category mistake. Ironically, for the need to expunge the veto-power from the federal-level councils after the departure of Orbán to still be felt as pressing, Michel’s prediction of no increase in cohesion among the governors was significant. Unfortunately, as an impetus to even needed political reform, the abstraction of a prediction pales in comparison to the actual use of vetoes, such as Orbán’s veto of the loan to Ukraine.


1. Jorge Liboreiro, “Orbán-Style Vetoes Undermind E.U. Democracy, Kaja Kallas Tells Euronews Hoping for Reset,” Euronews.com, 24 April 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Angela Skujins, “European Council Should “Think Carefully” before Removing Unanmity, Says Michel,” Euronews.com, 24 April, 2026.
5. Ibid.; italics added for emphasis.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.

Monday, April 20, 2026

Should the E.U. Pay Prospective States to Reform?

Should the European Union pay prospective, or “candidate,” states to undergo legislative, rule-of-law reforms prior to accession even though becoming a state is not assured? In April, 2026, Marta Kos, the Commission’s commissioner for enlargement warned the E.U.’s parliament that the Commission might “suspect €1.5 billion in E.U. funding for Serbia due to rule-of-law concerns and contentious judicial reforms” that had been introduced in Serbia’s legislature in January.”[1] I contend that the legislative or constitutional proposals should have been sufficient to freeze the very question of Serbia’s accession, and that the Commission should not pay candidate states to undergo reforms in the first place.

Speaking to the elected representatives in the federal parliament, “Kos said she was particularly concerned about legal amendments that introduce major changes, creating a flawed form of autonomy for Serbia’s anti-corruption prosecution and weakening the independence of the judiciary.”[2] That those constituted major changes are were on the scale of amendments rather than mere statutes could have alerted President Von der Leyen as to whether Serbia was in any condition to become a state in a political union in which rule of law (i.e., an autonomous judiciary, and democratically-valid multi-party elections) is assumed rather than even subject to debate. In other words, rule-of-law, as enforced by a judiciary independent of whatever party happens to be in power in the legislative and executive branches of a government, is so fundamental in the E.U. that major changes even being proposed in a prospective state should be a huge red flag. Accordingly, the question goes beyond whether to suspend paying money to such a state to undergo reforms that should be done anyway.

That Serbia’s political culture, at least with respect to its government, was worsening appreciably is clear from Kos’s statement, “We are increasingly worried about what is happening in Serbia. From laws that undermine the independence of the judiciary to crackdowns on protesters and recurrent meddling in independent media.”[3] Such crackdowns and meddling go beyond rendering a judiciary subservient to a governing political group, and thus render Serbia unfit at least for the time being for joining the E.U. as a state. At the very least, in other words, Serbia should not be “eligible for E.U. funding to support its required internal reforms.”[4] If prospective states want to join the E.U., then they should be willing to pay for their reforms themselves. Why, in other words, should the E.U. feel obliged to pay? I contend that joining the E.U. is of such value to any outside state-level republic that the E.U. should not in principle pay for candidate states to get themselves into shape from a democratic standpoint.

Even on policy grounds, the accession of Serbia was risky for the E.U., given the military aggressiveness of Russia in Ukraine. That the E.U.’s parliament had “adopted a resolution criticizing Serbia’s failure to align with E.U. foreign policy” against Russia in 2025[5] should have been a wake-up call for the E.U., given Viktor Orbán’s intentional undermining of E.U. foreign policy with regard to Russia. Did the E.U. administration want another Hungary wielding its veto in the European Council and the Council of Ministers in favor of Russia even as that country was still invading one of its neighbors?

Therefore, Kos’s statement, “We will continue to support Serbia on its E.U. path,”[6] can and arguably should be subject to formidable critique. After all, the E.U. was not so weak at the time, even given its refusal to expunge the veto-power from states in the European Council, that the Commission should have been so desperate to take in even marginal states. The greatness of the E.U. depended more in making internal reforms at the federal level in line with the fact that the member-states were semi-sovereign, than in enlarging. Just because Orbán had just been voted out of office in Hungary does not mean that the intransigence of one state in the European Council and the Council of Ministers could not again hamstring federal foreign and military policy even in the face of the Russian bear invading one of its neighbors on President Putin’s utterly fallacious supposition that the old Russian empire should rise again.


1. Eleonora Vasques, “E.U. Considers Freezing Serbia’s €1.5 billion in E.U. Funds Amid Rule of Law Scrutiny,” Euronews.com, April 20, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

Tuesday, April 14, 2026

E.U. States and US Economies Compared Economically

Even in reporting and analyzing seemingly-objective economic data for comparative purposes, political ideology can creep in if that instinctual urge is powerful enough. Even in comparisons of political entities that are on the same level (e.g., city, region/province, kingdom, empire), “word-games” can be used to suggest that the republics being compared are on different political levels. The use of linguistic subterfuge is, I submit, underhanded and based on a stubborn refusal to admit to oneself that the two or more political entities being compared are indeed on the same level, rather than one being higher than the other. In the case of comparing GDP and GDP per capita between E.U. and U.S. states, the very fact that the states are being compared to each other, rather than a state in one union to another union (as if a state in one political union were equivalent to another union of states—a category mistake to be sure!), means that the respective states are in fact equivalent even though different labels are used according to whether a given state is in one union or another. In arguing these points, I shall juxtaposition the respective labels to highlight the absurdity of using different labels for ideological purposes.

In mid-April, 2026, Euronews, which reflects Euroskeptic language in order to appease critics of the E.U., reported that top E.U. states and U.S. republics were roughly similar in “economic size rankings.”[1] Even though E.U. states, like U.S. states, were (and had been) semi-sovereign states, Euronews belied its own economic likeness of the respective economic sizes of big states in both unions by erroneously inventing the label, “EU countries” just before “US states.” Then, in the next paragraph, the journalist used the label, “European economies” for the E.U. states yet retained US states. In English, the expression, “Something funny is going on here” is a way of applying suspicion to another person’s underlying motives. In other words, something more is going on in the writing of the article than merely comparing economic numbers. This is the idea.

The “word games” bent on subtly overlaying differentials are undercut when we turn to the numbers themselves. In terms of GDP, the list from highest to lowest shows E.U. states and U.S. states clustered: Germany, California, France, Texas, Italy, New York, Spain, and Florida. That big states in one union of states are economically equivalent to big states in the other union is good evidence that the respective states in the two unions are equivalent more generally. To take one example, the GDP of Spain in 2025 was €1.687 trillion and that of Florida was €1.624 trillion.[2] To be sure, in making more general comparisons between the two semi-sovereign states, Spain’s greater size, 3.6 times the territorial size of Florida, is significant. However, that Spain’s 505,990 square kilometers falls between the 423,970 of California and the 695,662 of Texas strongly suggests that in terms of territory, the large (and small) states of the respective unions cluster together, rather than it being the case that a large state in one union clusters with the other union overall. To be sure, the exception to this is Alaska being larger than the E.U. itself, but otherwise, the large states in the two unions cluster not only in terms of economic output, but also geographical size.

The article’s report of GDP per capita even puts some large U.S. states above even large E.U. states because New York, California, Illinois, Texas, and Florida have higher numbers than do the Netherlands, Germany, France and Italy. The bar-graph in the article even has all of the states in blue whereas the U.S. and E.U. are in other colors so those two unions could be compared to each other. Even though the graph is labeled as “EU’s top 5 economies vs. top 5 U.S. states” (notice, too, the subtle, selective use of periods in “U.S.” but not “EU” as if this means that the latter is an organization rather than a union of states!), that all of the states are shown with blue bars indicates that the states of the respective unions are equivalent (and that the unions can be compared with each other, rather than to a state).

In making the argument of state-equivalence, out of which I derived union-equivalence, I once read the ten volumes of George Bancroft’s History of the United States of America, From the Discovery of the American Continent after having taken Joanne Freeman’s Yale course on the American Revolutionary War. In writing British Colonies Forge an American Empire: A Basis for Trans-Atlantic Comparisons, I wanted to highlight that according to Bancroft’s studies, people on both sides of the Atlantic viewed the British colonies as being on the scale of the countries in Europe at the time. Bancroft reports in his texts that both the political elite in the colonies and in the British Empire’s host kingdom (i.e., Britain) tended to view the United Colonies as being on the empire- rather than kingdom-level.[3] In fact, even New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and Southern (informal) sub-groups of colonies were viewed as empires in themselves by some people! Not just a few British politicians were nervous about there being an empire (or empires!) within the empire; an empire consists of kingdom-level political entities. That both Virginia and Ireland were regarded as members of the British Empire is strong evidence that the British colonies in North America were regarded from the start in the Greek rather than the Roman sense of a colonialization (i.e., a colony constructed to be equivalent to the host country rather than as a part thereof; for example, a city-state in Greece creating another city-state). This is the historical underpinning for my conclusion that the U.S. states, rather than the U.S. itself, are equivalent to E.U. states, and therefore I submit that the claim that a state of the E.U. is equivalent to the U.S. is a political category mistake. In historical terms, no one would have claimed that a kingdom and an empire are equivalent because empires consisted of kingdoms. That both a free-standing, or free, kingdom and an empire were both sovereign does not make the two equivalent because sovereignty is merely an attribute rather than definitive.  

Comparative politics can extend beyond comparing types of political systems (e.g., democracy, autocracy) to consider the matter of equivalence in terms of city-states, regions, kingdoms, and empires. Early in the seventeenth century, the European jurisprud Althusius wrote Political Digest on federalism based on the Holy Roman Empire. In his text, he clearly distinguished between the different levels in a federation: the guilds, the cities, the regions, the kingdoms, and the empire. His theory of federalism has the next-lower being members (and thus represented) in the next-higher, with individuals being members only of the guilds. His isomorphic federalism is more the case in the E.U. than the U.S. because none of the American states have federal systems. By viewing the E.U. and the U.S. as equivalent, Althusius’s theory could be seen to be applicable to the U.S., especially in regard to that union’s large, internally heterogenous states like California, Illinois, and New York. Comparing apples with apples, and oranges with oranges in comparative politics can indeed have such significant practical benefits, but not if Europeans and Americans go on treating individual states in one union as being equivalent to the other union rather than to states thereof.

Saturday, March 14, 2026

On the Glacial Pace of E.U. Accession for Serbia and Albania

With Russian troops having been in Ukraine for over four years by March, 2026, the case was indeed being made then for the E.U. enlarging as much and as soon as possible by adding new states, including Ukraine. For in addition to making it more difficult for Russia to invade countries in Eastern Europe by turning them into E.U. states, the main way that a federal union, whether the E.U. or U.S., expands is by the accession of new states from what had been sovereign countries. This is why Canada would enter the U.S. as a state, or, more likely, a few states, rather than in a merge. Especially with the Russians having been dropping bombs on Ukrainian people and infrastructure for years, giving up some governmental sovereignty was arguably not too high a price for state governments to accept.  

In a public effort to push the accession process along for their respective future states, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama published an op-ed in a European newspaper to propose “functional partial integration serving as an intermediate step to revive the EU enlargement process and increase stability in the region.”[1] In other words, Serbia and Albania would at some point get some but not all of the rights that go along with E.U. statehood. The single market and the Schengen area would be granted as the intermediate step, while no decision-making power would be extended at the federal level either for the governments of Serbia and Albania (in the European Council and the Council of Ministers) or for Serbians and Albanians in having elected representatives in the European Parliament. The “trial balloon” of giving Ukraine a similar intermediate limbo-state had popped rather loudly at an E.U. summit, so it would seem to follow that the proposal by the Serbia and Albanian leaders would be dead on arrival at the European Council.

The frustration with the enlargement process in general was certainly palpable by 2026 and could explain the desperate attempt of Serbia and Albania to get  at least one foot into the E.U. sooner rather than later. Thanks in large part to Hungary’s ongoing veto of Ukraine’s accession process from being formally carried out, obstacles to enlargement were getting a lot of press in early 2026. In 2025, an E.U. report on enlargement “highlighted Belgrade’s lack of alignment” with the E.U.’s sanctions against Russia for having unjustifiably invaded Ukraine.[2] Serbia’s lack of reform for media freedom, electoral law, and civil society had also been responsible for the stall in talks. As for Albania, although it was considered “one of the most promising candidates for EU accession,” corruption remained stubbornly entrenched. It would be interesting to compare that corruption with that which was in Ukraine at the time. The question of whether geo-political urgency should relegate concerns about corruption has no easy answer except perhaps in lopping off the extremes. To be sure, Albania had introduced the anti-corruption authority SPAK, but the more interesting question is perhaps whether the Ukrainian government did likewise in a way that leaves a viable record of less corruption.

In general, the “accession process for Serbia and other Western Balkan countries (had) stalled for years, as candidate countries (had not) made sufficient process on rule of law, anti-corruption measures, media freedom and judicial reforms. . .”[3] With the NATO defensive umbrella in place, except for Ukraine, the urgency pertaining to the rest of the candidates was not sufficient, I submit, to justify not finishing the job on rule of law, anti-corruption, media freedom and judicial reforms because all of these are very important to a civil society and a republic on an ongoing basis. Granting some candidate countries some intermediate rights could be expected to reduce the incentive of those state governments to continue to come into alignment with the E.U.’s expectations prior to statehood being fully granted.

Regarding the glacial pace of enlargement generally, a silver-lining to that dark cloud can be seen in that something had to be done about the stultifying impact of the principle of unanimity in the European Council before gaining even more states would make reaching unanimity even more difficult that it was for 27 states. Put another way, making sure that the candidate states made the requisite reforms not only would render the E.U. more solidly democratic and based on the rule of law and freedom (e.g., of the press), but would also give the E.U. more time to reform its internal decision-making process where unanimity was still required for federal law and foreign (and defense) policy to be enacted and promulgated, respectively. Not everything that seems weak in the E.U. is actually weakness, though admittedly requiring unanimity from 27 governments can be coined an exercise in futility in service to the absurd.

1. Zara Riffler, “Serbia and Albania Issue Joint Text on EU Accession without Veto,” Euronews.com, 11 March, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.


Friday, March 6, 2026

E.U. Statehood for Sovereign Countries

Even as the E.U. struggled to come up with foreign policies on Gaza, Ukraine, and Iran in March, 2026, the union must have been cogent enough then for the Icelandic government to set a date at the end of the summer to have a referendum on whether to seek statehood. The term for this is accession, not merger, for an empire-scale union such as the U.S. or E.U. contains semi-sovereign states rather than co-scale and co-equal “partners.” By implication, to liken a state in one such union to another entire union is to make a category mistake that can be thought of in historical terms as making the claim that a kingdom is equivalent to an empire (of kingdoms). Both the E.U. and U.S. are federations composed of early-modern scale kingdoms and republics.[1] This is not so in the cases of Mexico and Canada. In fact, the U.S. has an open invitation for Canada’s accession (rather than merger).[2] People who presume that it was arrogant for the U.S. founders to invite Canada to accede as a state forget that the U.S. was formed by sovereign countries that became semi-sovereign states.

As the E.U. expands, it too draws on sovereign countries to become states through the process of accession (rather than merger). The planned referendum in Iceland was not on a merger of two countries. Iceland had submitted to the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive branch, an application for accession in 2009, but then unilaterally halted the process in 2015 even though 11 of the 33 “chapters” had been completed. As a sovereign nation, Iceland could indeed unilaterally stop the process, and when the Icelandic government announced the date for the upcoming referendum, the Commission could at most welcome the announcement. In doing so, a spokesman for the Commission said, “Iceland is a close and valued partner of the E.U. . . . Our cooperation is already strong and wide-ranging and we look forward to continuing and further strengthening our close cooperation with the Icelandic authorities.”[3] The word partner connotes distance as in the sense that Iceland is a sovereign country rather than an E.U. state. The word is problematic, however, in that it implies an equivalency. Even just in Iceland having submitted an application, a lack of equivalency is inherent to the relationship. Moreover, accession itself lacks equivalency because Iceland could become a state in the E.U., and no state is an equal partner with the union in which the state is a part, for a part and a whole cannot be equivalent.

The same held in the case of the U.S., which was formed first as a military alliance and then as a confederation of sovereign countries, and only on March 4, 1789 as a modern (i.e., dual sovereignty) federation of semi-sovereign states and semi-sovereign federal governmental institutions. In other words, the Articles of Confederation, which was ratified in 1781, was for a union of sovereign countries. Therefore, just as the U.S. was formed in 1776 (and continuing under the Articles) by sovereign countries, so too was the E.U. formed by sovereign countries. In both cases, sovereign countries, such as Iceland in 2026, because semi-sovereign states and thus parts of political unions. Accession itself is a distinctly political process.


1. See Skip Worden, British Colonies Forge an American Empire: A Basis for Trans-Atlantic Comparisons (Seattle: Amazon, 2017)
2. Because Canada has expanded West since the 18th century, Canada would most likely accede as three or four U.S. states rather than just one.
3. Gregoire Lory, “Iceland Plans August Referendum on Resuming EU Membership Negotiations,” Euronews.com, 3 March, 2026.

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