The AfD Group Surges in a Regional Election in the E.U. State of Germany

Both the U.S. and E.U. mandate that their respective states be republics (i.e., representative democracies), and thus assuming an autocratic government is prohibited. When the governor of the state of Hungary restricted freedom of the press and judicial independence, the E.U. pushed back until Viktor Orbán lost reelection in 2026. Later that year, when the AfD (far right) group won in a region of the state of Germany, the state’s chancellor publicly voiced concern regarding the group’s attitude toward democracy. Viewing the governor as the bastion of constraint on such a trend ignores the E.U. entirely and treats Germany as still fully sovereign rather than being a state in the federal Union, which also has authority to protect democracy even if that authority was shown to be too weak with regard to Orbán’s rule in Hungary.

In early September, 2026, the “anti-immigration AfD group won the election in the Saxony-Anhalt region of the state of Germany “by a landslide, taking 43.8% of the vote. The CDU came in a distant second with 17.2%.”[1] Compared with the region’s election in 2021 “the AfD more than doubled its vote share, while the CDU saw its share halved.”[2] Merkel’s decision to open the state to immigrants from vastly different cultures than that of the E.U. had come home to roust, electorally; she could have predicted such a counter-reaction, given the cultural conservativism that has been so very salient in that E.U. state, as well as in Austria, another socially conservative state.

In the regional election, “60% of voters had chosen parties that call democracy into question.”[3] Merz, the state’s governor, said at the time that his state “needs fundamental reforms,” and yet he had hardly been a charismatic leader for substantial change.[4] Indeed, he lamented “the government’s failure to communicate policies in a sufficiently emotive and compelling way.”[5] Such policies hardly constituted “fundamental reforms” even though he “saw a society ‘longing for disruption’ and ‘fundamental change.’”[6] The victory of the AfD group doubtlessly had something to do with the built-up pressure from the dissatisfaction. Looking to the state government as a check against excesses in the AfD group can thus be regarded as problematic. Fortunately, Germany is an E.U. state. That a state in a federal system can itself have a federal system is perfectly consistent with historical federal theory, as discussed theoretically by Althusius, interestingly a German jurisprud, in his treatise, Political Digest (1603). Just because a state has a federal system does not mean that it cannot itself be a state in a federal system. Large U.S. states that are internally diverse in their respective regions could benefit by this point, as such states could benefit from adopting federal systems. Texas, New York, Illinois, and most obviously California could benefit greatly.

In analyzing the victory of the AfD group, I am deliberately taking a federal perspective from the vantage point of the E.U., which like its states is semi-sovereign politically, and thus constitutes a “political union” (of the same genus as the United States). Both unions represent “empire-scale” federal republics of republics—wheels within a wheel, to borrow from Kenneth Wheare’s text, Federal Government. To be viable, all of the wheels must be democratic rather than autocratic; otherwise, states without political freedom would tend to unilaterally nullify federal law from being valid within such states.

Once federal law is ignored, a federal union of state is in real trouble because the practice could easily spread to become a norm. This is doubtless why U.S. President Jackson sent troops to South Carolina in 1831 after its government enacted a law nullifying any federal law contrary to the state’s political or economic interests. The issue then was an agricultural tariff that had recently been enacted by the federal government. Jackson got both the tariff and the Nullification Act revoked, and thus safeguarded the system of federalism.

The E.U. too has sought to counter efforts by states to ignore federal law, and to eclipse democracy and freedom of the press and judiciary as well. Although Merz emphasized after the regional election that the AfD group would “have to follow the line set” by the state government, he omitted the fact that the group would also have to follow the line set by the European Union. This is a significant omission, especially given the governor’s political weakness at the state level. Just as the Commission withheld federal funds from the state of Hungary during Orbán’s autocratic rule, such funds would be held back from a state governed by the AfD were that group to eviscerate rule of law, freedom of the press, and judicial independence there. To be sure, the (excessive) involvement of the state governments at the federal level via the European Council and the Council of Ministers and the state veto itself enervate the enforcement by the Commission, but this is not to say that the state governments are the only ones capable of safeguarding democracy. State officials ignore the E.U. at their own peril; such a stance, which in American parlance has been referred to as “state rights” and in European terms is commonly known as the “Euroskeptic” ideology, needlessly opens Europe up to dictatorship once again. We need only look back less than a century to see examples of fascist dictatorship in what would become the European Union. Even in the twenty-first century, Europeans can hardly afford to ignore the E.U.’s safeguards even though they are needlessly weak in enforcement due to the state veto mechanism (i.e., a conflict of interest) at the federal level.

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1. Laura Freischmann, “Merz ‘Deeply Shocked’ After Major Afd Win in Saxony-Ahhalt,” Euronews.com 7 September, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

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.

Hungary Blocks €90 billion E.U. Loan for Ukraine: Holding the E.U. Hostage

It is one thing for a dog’s tail to lead; even worse is the situation in which the tail refuses to let the dog walk or run. The staying power of the principle of unanimity in the European Council and the Council of the E.U. enables any one of the state governments to block federal policy and law. Such a blockage makes the tyranny of a minority look tame. In contrast, qualified-majority voting ensures that enough of a majority—a “super-majority”—is in place that the resulting minority should lose. The notion that every state government must be “on board” for the E.U. to enact a policy or law is misplaced because governmental sovereignty in that Union is “dual” because both the E.U.’s federal level and the state governments have at least some sovereignty. The same is true of American federalism. Neither the E.U. nor the U.S. is a confederation of sovereign states; only in such a federation does the principle of unanimity fit.

Facing an uphill electoral contest in two months, Hungary’s sitting prime minister, Viktor Orbán, had one of his ministers, Peter Szijártó, announce on 20 February, 2026, “We are blocking the €90 billion EU loan for Ukraine until oil transit to Hungary via the Druzhba pipeline resumes.”[1] This is an obvious example of a part putting its own interest ahead of the whole, which includes not only the E.U. but also the entire world-order, given Russia’s non-provoked aggression in Ukraine for years with impunity. Regarding the E.U., the implication that a federal program should be in the particular interests of each state in order to go forward reduces the E.U. to a mere aggregation in which every part must be satisfied and thus federal action is severely constrained even at the expense of the E.U. itself, meaning the collective interest that goes beyond the aggregate of the particular interests of the states.

Besides the systemic problem in allowing each of 27 states to block federal action and even statements, Hungary’s use of its veto to block the loan demonstrates that the governor of an E.U. state is perfectly capable of wielding the veto power immaturely and irrationally. Szijjártó claimed “Ukraine is blackmailing Hungary by halting oil transit in coordination with Brussels and the Hungarian opposition to create supply disruptions in Hungary and push fuel prices higher before the elections.”[2] In other words, the E.U. state was blaming Ukraine. The problem with that narrative is that the “Druzhba pipeline, which dates back to the Soviet Union, was damaged after it was hit by a Russian strike and that has impacted transit.”[3] That the strike had been unprovoked and Ukraine was in the midst of massive power outages due to other Russian strikes seem not to have registered in Budapest. Ukraine was “in the midst of a difficult winter, with gruelling temperatures below zero. Russia’s constant pounding with missiles and drones means a large part of [Ukraine’s] energy infrastructure has been destroyed and cannot cope with the heating needs of civilians.”[4] Was Ukraine to drop everything to fix the pipeline that Russia had damaged? Rather than make this claim, the governor of Hungary could have weened his state off Russian oil. The rationale for the veto is thus dubious at best, and this in turn raises the question of whether the governors of the E.U. states are capable of having a veto at the federal level, especially as one of the rationales for the E.U. is to forestall war from breaking out between states or between a state and a foreign country. This rationale is but one of ways in which the interests of the whole—the European Union—are not mere aggregates of the particular interests of the states, for none of the states has a mandate to look out for peace throughout the E.U.

That Hungary even has a veto over the loan is a stretch because the E.U. states of Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic had successfully been granted federal exemptions from contributing financially to the €90 billion loan. It was “subject to unanimity” nonetheless “because it amends the E.U. budget rules to allow borrowing” for a foreign country.[5] That the E.U. allowed exempted states to vote nonetheless is, I submit, yet another indication that the E.U. was still too wedded to the principle of unanimity and the states were too unwilling to give up that power. That Hungary’s use of that power in this instance was so wrong-headed, for Russia rather than Ukraine was responsible for the non-functioning pipeline, adds urgency to the point that the E.U. should finally confront the question of whether to reform itself by expunging the confederation-fitting principle of unanimity.

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1. Maria Tadeo and Jorge Liboreiro, “Hungary Blocks €90 Billion Loan for Ukraine over Damaged Pipeline as Tensions Escalate,” Euronews.com, 20 February, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

Is the E.U. in the U.S.'s Strategic Interest?

Is a more perfect Union in Europe in America’s national interest? On the American holiday in 2026 that principally honors George Washington, whose eight-year commitment as the military commander-in-chief to the cause of freedom for the 13 new sovereign republics that had been members of the British Empire (and would forge a comparable political Union[1]) was decisive, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited the E.U. state of Hungary to deliver “a message of support from the Trump administration to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán,” who was behind in the polls in his re-election campaign.[2] At their press conference, Orbán and Rubio “signed an agreement on energy cooperation and hailed what they described as a ‘golden age’ of bilateral relations.”[3] E.U. officials were nowhere in sight; it was as if Hungary were still a sovereign state rather than a semi-sovereign E.U. state. An implicit question untreated by the media in the E.U. or U.S. is whether bilateral relations between the U.S. and individual E.U. states, as if the E.U. were nonexistent, was still in the U.S. national interest, especially in the context of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

The full essay is at "Is the E.U. in the U.S.'s Strategic Interest?"

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1. Skip Worden, British Colonies Forge an American Empire: A Basis for Trans-Atlantic Comparisons (Seattle: Amazon Books, 2017).
2. Sandor Zsiros, “’We Want You to Continue’: Rubio Delivers Trump’s Campaign Message to Orbán in Budapest,” Euronews.com, 16 February, 2026.
3. Ibid.

Mutual Cooperation as Insufficient as E.U. Defense Policy

The words mutuality and cooperation have positive connotations politically, whereas divisive and exclusive do not. To be sure, mutual cooperation has the drawback of relegating competitiveness, which can foster greater efficiency and effectiveness. In the policy domain of defense, however, wherein nuclear weapons live, competition between weaponized polities can be dangerous and thus not worth any improvements from competing. The Cold War in the twentieth century attests to the superiority of mutuality and cooperation at the international theatre wherein polities act as sovereign militarized entities. Within a federal Union, however, relying on the mutual cooperation between states is, I contend, woefully deficient and inadequate. In fact, relying on states to assume the burden of defense can lead to the violent break up of a Union, as was dramatically demonstrated in what some Americans have called the War between the States (1861-1865), but is more accurately called the war between the U.S.A. and the C.S.A.(the Confederate States of America). Two political unions of very different balances of power between the respective federal and state levels of governance. It is precisely with this historical example in mind that the comments made by E.U. (Commission) President Von der Leyen at the Munich Security Conference in February, 2026 should be analyzed. Relying in going forward from that time on the E.U. states to build up their respective military forces, or militias in American-speak, under the assumption that those states would mutually cooperate military is a very risky strategy for the E.U. at a time in which its cousin across the Atlantic Ocean was pulling back from Europe in terms of military protection.

Von der Leyen’s notion that the E.U. could rely on its states in defense (as well as foreign policy) must contend with reservations previously made by Mark Rutte, NATO’s Secretary General, on Europe being able to defend itself without American cover at least in the medium term. Specifically, Rutte had opined just a month earlier, “if anyone thinks here, again, that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the US, keep on dreaming. You can’t. We can’t. We need each other.”[1] Still the aggressor in Ukraine, Russia’s Putin was still a reality check on European “deams” of self-sufficiency in defense. Even so, Von der Leyen limited the E.U.’s enhanced defense-capabilities to reliance on its member-states. “I believe the time has come to bring Europe’s mutual defence clause to life,” she said. “Mutual defence is not optional . . . it is an obligation.”[2] She was referring to Article 42.7 of the E.U.’s basic law, which “states that ‘if an E.U. [state] is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other E.U. [states] have an obligation to aid and assist it by all means in their power.’”[3] This article is similar to Article 5 of the NATO international alliance. Besides ignoring the qualitatively and quantitively closer integration of states in a federal Union, copying the article of an international alliance leaves open the greater possibility—one that was foreseen by the American Founders on that Union being in part to prevent internecine wars between the states—that E.U. states could utilize their bolstered militaries to fight each other rather than just cooperate in a mutual action to push Russia out of Ukraine. In other words, Von der Leyen’s decision to rely on Article 42.7 rather than propose a federal army capable of united action beyond mutual cooperation (and to aid in the cooperation of the state militias) ignores the qualitative difference between a federal Union of states (i.e., European integration) and an international alliance. Besides the greater likely of conflicts between states in a Union, the E.U.’s foreign policy competency could lead to offensive rather than merely defensive united action, as for example could have been waged in Ukraine to push the Russian troops out in the first months of that invasion. In other words, the fact that governmental sovereignty in the E.U. is divided, albeit too unevenly, between the E.U. and the state governments means that relying on mutual cooperation between the states for military action is insufficient and even arguably contradictory. The latter treats the E.U. as it were like the U.S.’s Articles of Confederation, under which the 13 states were sovereign countries. Even without the dual-sovereignty that the E.U. federation enjoys, General Washington was (barely) able to hold together a continental army rather than rely on the mutual cooperation of the armies of the 13 American countries in that Union. How much more should the E.U. have a federal army, as per the dual-sovereignty-feature of its federal system! Lest it be countered that the E.U. states were still sovereign in 2026, the voting method of qualified-majority itself represents a transfer of sovereignty to the federal level, as a state could (and has) found itself on the losing side of those votes.

Finally, there is the danger in relying on the states to develop their own nuclear-weapons capability rather than assigning control of those weapons to the federal level institutions, including the European Council, which represents the state governments at the federal level directly. As Rutte said about European sufficiency in defense, “You’d have to build up your own nuclear capability” because “you would lose the ultimate guarantor of our freedom, which is the U.S. nuclear umbrella. So, hey, good luck!”[4] 

I would simply, add, good luck with Vickor Orbán of the E.U. state of Hungary having nuclear weapons as leverage against other states and even the ECJ and the Commission as they try to punish the Hungarian government for violating E.U. law. Moreover, good luck trying to minimize the chance that any E.U. state might use its strengthened military might to invade another state, with no federal army to push back the aggressor. Especially in the context of years of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Von der Leyen’s misjudgment in stopping at Article 42.7 is startling, especially as her speech came shortly after Mario Draghi’s speech urging more federal competencies in the E.U. to strengthen the federal system from being too dominated by its states at the expense of united action that goes beyond even mutual cooperation.

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1. Alice Tidey, “Von der Leyen Rebukes NATO Chief over ‘No Security Without US,’ Calls for European Mutual Defence,” Euronews.com, December 14, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

The E.U. without Enlargement: An Oxymoron?

The political debates concerning the accession of candidate states such as Texas, California, Alaska and even Hawaii into the U.S. were long past when the issue of enlargement became salient for the E.U. due to Russia’s unilateral, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. In the American case, surely no one was arguing that the U.S. without being enlarged would cease to be credible, yet in 2025, a government official of the candidate state of Montenegro said as much of the European Union. Even if Filip Ivanovic was merely using rhetoric during an interview on October 4, 2025, even that should at least make sense. Making matters worse, his comments can be interpreted as ultimatums for the E.U. even though nothing binds the E.U. to annexing any future state. In fact, given the veto-power of state officials at the federal level in the E.U., enlargement should arguably come only after internal reform of the E.U.’s basic law concerning the power of the states at the federal level.

During the interview with Euronews, the deputy prime-minister of the candidate state said, “If enlargement does not happen . . . then the very concept of the European Union loses its credibility: It’s not European, and it’s not a union anymore.”[1] I demur. That E.U. territory did not at the time extend to the entire continent of Europe does not mean that the E.U. was not European. No one would seriously contend that any of the E.U. states were not European, so it follows that the E.U. itself, consisting of those states and a federal system, was not European. As for the E.U. not being a union unless it enlarged under the pressure of Putin’s militaristic aggression in Ukraine, the E.U.’s own constitutional or basic law at the time put any such claim to rest as ludicrous. It was the deputy prime-minister’s credibility that was actually on the line from his statement.

At the time, nine possible states were officially designated by the Commission as candidates for statehood, with Montenegro being “the most advanced in implementing the constitutional, judicial and economic reforms” that are required.[2] But Montenegro being at an advanced stage does not mean that the E.U. was therefore duty-bound to annex the territory of the state as being within the Union. Even so, Ivanovic said the government of Montenegro “cannot accept” the refusal of the E.U. to extend statehood to Montenegro because the other possible states “would understand that whatever they do is in vain.”[3] Whether the government of Montenegro could or could not accept a negative decision should be irrelevant to the E.U. as it decides on whether, and by how much, and when to enlarge its territory by extending offers of statehood. Asking for something and then stating that unless it is given, the decision will be unacceptable is not the way to ask for something if the expectation is that the request will be granted.

Viktor Orban of the E.U. state of Hungary had been using the state’s veto in the European Council on proposals concerning enlargement and foreign policy. As a result of Orban’s siding with Putin rather than with the majority of other states in the Union, the Union was being back from within in being able to adequately help Ukraine to resist Russia’s invasion even though Putin’s militarism was not justified even by historical arguments because might does not itself make right. Enlarging the Union such that even more states would be able to wield a veto to styme the Union would be recipe for paralysis at the federal level, and so this consideration alone is credible in deciding when it would be best to admit new states. It is not as though taking account of the risk of being held up by a single state forestalling action on the federal level before taking up the matter of enlargement would lack in credibility. Rather, moderating the power of the individual veto, similar to how the U.S. Senate has moderated the power of the filibuster (which is based on the fact that the states retain some governmental sovereignty just as the E.U. states do), would be prudent as requisite to enlarging. Whether or not this strategy was acceptable to Montenegro is irrelevant.

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1. Mared Gwyn Jones, “EU Risks ‘Losing Credibility’ If It Fails to Enlarge, Montenegro’s Deputy PM Warns,” Euronews.com, 6 October 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Exploiting the E.U.’s Vulnerability to Enable an Atrocity Abroad

On April 3, 2025, Viktor Orban, prime minister of the E.U. state of Hungary, ignored not only the arrest warrant on Ben Netanyahu, the sitting prime minister of Israel, but also the E.U. law in the Rome Statute that requires the E.U. states to act on such warrants issued by the ICC (the International Criminal Court) by arresting people wanted by the Court. The provision in the Rome Statute of the E.U. requires all state governments to arrest people who are wanted by the ICC.  Orban doubtless knew that he could exploit union’s vulnerability with impunity because, like the U.S. in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the E.U. relied so much on the state governments to abide by and implement federal law and regulations. By ignoring the Rome Statute, he put the E.U. itself at risk.

To put Orban’s defiance in perspective, Israel’s military had just killed fifty people in Gaza, including children who could not possibly have been culpable in the attack on civilians in Israel on October 7, 2023 even though the president of Israel declared after that attack that every resident in Gaza was guilty and thus deserved to pay the price in suffering and even wholesale death.[1] “At least 27 Palestinians [were] killed in an Israeli air strike on a school in northern Gaza that was serving as a shelter for displaced families,” and the killing of another 97 people in Israeli attacks over the previous 24 hours” occurred as Israel’s “ground offensive was expanding to seize large parts of the Palestinian territory.”[2] These killings of innocent people took place in the context of “Israel’s cutoff of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies to Gaza’s 2 million people” that had been put into effect only months earlier in order to strengthen Israel’s negotiating position.[3] That a commission at the UN reported to the General Assembly in March that there was substantial evidence that Netanyahu was committing the crime against humanity of exterminating the Palestinian people in Gaza only validates what common sense alone readily realizes. Bombings, the destruction of hospitals, intentional starvation, or mass re-location had been documented and evaluated by the UN as constituting the crime against humanity of extermination of a people.

Also on April 3, 2025, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders vociferously called on his colleagues to vote to block more than $8.8 billion in upcoming arms-sales to Israel, which the Senate overwhelmingly voted not to ban. “What we are talking about is a mass atrocity, and what makes it even worse,” Sanders said in his floor-speech, “is that we as Americans are deeply complicit in all that is happening in Gaza.”[4] Apparently, political donations from defense contractors mean a lot to U.S. Senators, though loyalty to Israel could be held to be unconditional, ethically speaking, to some Senators, for both explanations are likely in play given the sheer number of senators who voted against banning the very type of bombs that Israel’s military had been using against even civilian homes, hospitals, and even fertility clinics.

Viktor Orban ignored the warning that the E.U.’s executive branch, the Commission, had directed to him in 2024, when he invited Netanyahu to Hungary.[5] Not even six months later, Orban welcomed the alleged war criminal to Budapest anyway, and even gave him a full state-ceremony. Much of the attention on the state visit was on the fact that Orban was ignoring the ICC’s arrest warrant even though Hungary was still a signatory as agreeing to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Because ignoring that international court and even the United Nations had by 2025 become part of the international status quo, as evinced by the Russian and Israeli governments, Orban’s willful disregard of his duty to have the alleged war criminal arrested could be greeted with a yawn.

The European Union is different because governmental sovereignty was divided in the founding between the state governments and the Union’s governmental branches, which includes the European Commission. Whereas in the U.S., the sovereignty assigned to the Union is referred to as enumerated powers, the delegated areas of governmental sovereignty of the Union are called competencies. Even the voting mechanism of qualified majority rule, which applies to some of the competencies, means that the E.U. state governments are not sovereign states. Just as when the U.S. was young, the E.U. even as of 2025 still vested most governmental sovereignty as retained by the states. Doing so risks dissolution of the union, as the U.S. discovered in 1861.

Even back in 1831, the government of the U.S.  member-state of South Carolina passed the Nullification Acts, whereby that state’s government could unilaterally invalidate any federal law or regulation within that state's borders. I submit that the E.U. state of Hungary did likewise in 2025 when Israel’s sitting prime minister landed in Hungary without being arrested. For as stipulated by the Rome Statute, and a statute is something more than a mere international agreement, the E.U. states are required to arrest individuals wanted by the International Court of Justice if they enter the territories of the respective states. That the obligation is part of the international legal framework on which the ICC relies is qualitatively different than the status of a federal statute of a union in which sovereignty is split (and shared). 

Just as U.S. President Andrew Jackson did not let South Carolina’s nullification law stand, E.U. President Ursula von der Leyen faced the necessity of seeing that state governments do not get away with ignoring E.U. law. For if such dismissiveness were to become the norm, the E.U. itself would eventually fall apart, especially given the imbalance of governmental sovereignty. Even just to commit the category mistake of treating a federal system of dual sovereignty as if it were of the same genus as international organizations is to undercut and even belie the former. I submit that Viktor Orban was guilty of this too.

It is interesting that so much can occur on the same day—that even though not causal in nature, combines to furnish an ethical and political meaning that is like a snapshot of the underlying dynamics stretching over continents. The sheer impunity of both Netanyahu and Orban, respecting international law and E.U. federal law, respectively, is, I submit, a red-flag pointing to the decadence of the post-1945 world order. That the U.N. itself was largely relegated as impotent to the sidelines with respect not only to Israel, but also Putin in Russia, can be taken as reason enough for a new world order. Unfortunately, the tyranny of the status quo has various levers at its disposal to keep political development from occurring even as fires rage on the ground.

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1. Gavin Blackburn, “At Least 50 People Killed in Overnight Israeli Air Strikes Across Gaza, Hospital Officials Say,” Euronews.com, April 4, 2025.
2. David Gritten, “Israeli Strike on Gaza City School Kills 27, Health Ministry Says,” BBC.com, April 3, 2025.
3. Julia Frankel and Samy Magdy, “Israel’s Cutoff of Supplies to Gaza Sends Prices Soaring as Aid Stockpiles Dwindle,” The Associated Press (apnews.com), March 5, 2025.
4. Sanjana Karanth, “Bernie Sanders Condemns ‘Deeply Complicit’ Congress Before Vote On Weapons Sales to Israel,” The Huffington Post, April 3, 2025.
5. Shona Murray and Jorge Liboreiro, “Brussels Warns Orban over Netanyahu Visit: It’s Your Duty to Comply with ICC Warrants,” Euronews, November 11, 2024.

Hungary’s Delusion of Sovereignty

On October 3, 2024, The European Commission, the E.U.’s executive branch, filed a legal complaint against the E.U. state of Hungary with the E.U.’s judicial branch—the high court of which being the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The Commission had won a case against the state and recently subtracted the amount of fine issued by the court from the federal money set to go to the state because the Hungarian government was refusing to recognize the verdict. Like Britain before it had seceded from the Union, Hungary was operating under the incorrect premise that it still enjoyed full sovereignty even though every state delegates some of its governmental sovereignty to the Union in becoming a state thereof. In the case of Hungary, the state law at issue in 2024 had in its very name the fundamental problem out of which the state’s disputes with the E.U. were emanating.

 In its written statement, the Commission describes Hungary’s “contentious act,” which “establishes the so-called Sovereignty Protection Office (SPO) to investigate people and organizations suspected of undermining the country’s ‘national sovereignty’ and ‘constitutional identity.’”[1] Assisted by the state’s secret police, the SPO could legally “collect information on individuals or groups that receive funding from abroad and are perceived to influence the democratic debate and electoral processes ‘in the interest of another state’ or ‘foreign organ,’ meaning a non-state actor.[2] Undue political influence from outside the E.U. state could presumably come from another state in the Union or from outside of it. Treating both the same involves making the dubious claim that for one state or people therein to buy political advertising or contribute to a political campaign in another state is anti-democratic.

Furthermore, that such interstate political influence somehow violates Hungary’s sovereignty ignores the fact that every state in the Union has given up some governmental sovereignty even just for qualified majority voting to be allowed at the federal level in the Parliament, the European Council, and the Council of the European Union. Only if every E.U. law, directive, and regulation required the unanimous consent of the state governments, which could legally ignore rulings by the ECJ would the Union be composed of sovereign states, such as the U.S. was under its initial Articles of Confederation from 1777 to 1789.

The claim of Hungary’s government that its sovereignty is violated by political influence from elsewhere in the Union can be answered by pointing out that the state is no longer in fact sovereign anyway because it is in a Union whose federal system rests on dual-sovereignty. Put another way, the states have consolidated politically to an extent for their common good, which includes being able to have more political weight in the world, so interstate political influence can be viewed as part of that intermingling that is actually a good thing for such a federal system. If states are too heterogenous (i.e., different), then achieving united action at the federal level is very difficult. The combined sovereignties that instantiate federal sovereignty is actually partly Hungary’s, so interstate influence does not necessarily violate Hungary’s sovereignty.

Back in February of 2024, the Commission cited “the principle of democracy, the right to private life, the protection of personal data, freedom of expression, information and association, and the presumption of innocence, among others,” as being violated by the state of Hungary presumably because they threaten the state government’s sovereignty.[3] More accurately, they may have been a threat to Viktor Orbán’s party remaining in power in Hungary. The principles of liberty and democracy that the Commission was arguing that the Hungarian government was violating can be viewed as competencies, or domains of authority, that both federal and state governmental institutions could legally act on. Put another way, the Commission was well within its rights to protect democracy at the state level. In the U.S., the executive branch had acted to protect democracy at the state level, as in enforcing civil rights with regard to the access of Black people to schools and voting. Alabama could hardly say that its sovereignty was being violated because the federal institutions had the authority to enforce democracy in the United States.

The very name of Hungary’s Sovereignty Protection Office is wrong, for the state had delegated some of its sovereignty when it joined the European Union. Just days after the Commission announced that it was taking the state of Hungary to court at the federal level (i.e., at the ECJ), the Hungarian trade minister voted no in a vote taken at the Council of the EU on whether the EU should put tarriffs on Chinese electric vehicles. Had the measure passed the Council, Hungary would have had to recognize the tarriffs as valid within the state. This alone means that Hungary had given up some governmental sovereignty when it acceded to the E.U. as a state.  As it happened, too many votes were abstentions, so there was no final vote either way. So the Commission used its exclusive authority, or competency, in commercial law and policy to enact the tarriffs.  So it is not just qualified majority voting in which the E.U.'s state governments were no longer fully sovereign states. That the E.U. has shared and exclusive competencies, or domains in which it can enact laws and regulations, means that the state governments no longer were fully sovereign. Hungary's "National Sovereignty Law" was thus not only contrary to a basic EU value (and norm), but also a misnomer that gives people the wrong idea concerning Hungary in the E.U. 

To pretend to be sovereign still, such as by ignoring a negative verdict by the ECJ, undermines the sovereignty that Hungary and the other states delegated to the Union, and thus in a way their own sovereignty too because the state governments play a significant role at the federal level not only in the European Council and the Council of the E.U., but also in nominating commissioners for the College in the Commission. In this respect, the state government of Hungary was compromising a part of its sovereignty—that which had been combined with parts of the respective sovereignties of the other states. By making interstate political influence illegal in Hungary, Orbán failed to recognize that the sovereignty at the federal-level has a legitimate interest in there being at least some interstate harmonization, and legally includes protection of the basic values of the Union, such as democracy and liberty. If as I suspect he believed that Hungary was still fully sovereign as a country, then it had no business being a state in the European Union. Britain seceded for this reason—David Cameron, as prime minister, had said that the E.U. was just one of the networks that the UK was in. Similarly, Orbán’s Sovereignty Protection Office explicitly belies or undermines Hungary’s claim to be a state in the Union of states. The Union would be better off without that internal contradiction.

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “Brussels Takes Hungary to Court over Its Controversial ‘National Sovereignty’ Law,” Euronews.com, October 3, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

The €35 Billion E.U. Loan to Ukraine: One E.U. State as a Destabilizer

On September 20, 2024, it was announced that the E.U. would “raise a €35 billion loan to support the Ukrainian economy and military.”[1] At a press conference next to Ukraine’s president Zelenskyy, the E.U.’s president said, “Russia keeps targeting your civilian energy infrastructure in a blatant and vicious way to try to plunge your country in the dark.”[2] So the loan stood to impact the Ukrainian people directly and significantly. It would be a shame if the principle of unanimity in the European Council would stand in the way of the Ukrainian people being warm during the upcoming winter. This is a very tangible way for people to grasp just how real the costs are of state governments having vetoes over a significant number of E.U. competencies (i.e., enumerated powers). “The European Union is here to help you in this challenge to keep the lights on, to keep your people warm as winter is just around the corner, and to keep your economy going as you fight for survival,” Von der Leyen said at the news conference.[3] Hungary’s Viktor Orbán stood in the way, however, to securing the collateral for a long enough period to render the loan (an any from the U.S. based on the collateral) secure.

The loan uses Russia’s immobilized assets as collateral, and E.U. sanctions on the assets had to be renewed every six months by unanimity. The concern was that Hungary would use its veto because it is the “most Russia-friendly” E.U. state.[4] Before the announcement, the Commission had proposed alternative asset renewal periods ranging from 36 months to five years. Tellingly, one state government announced that it would wait until after the upcoming U.S. election before considering the options. This made it difficult for the E.U. to give the U.S. legal assurance that the Russian assets in the E.U. would remain frozen—that the collateral would remain under the control of the E.U. rather than go back to Russia. Because the collateral could not be assured going forward, the U.S. Congress would have to approve funding for any American loan to Ukraine secured by the collateral in Europe. Of course, the E.U.’s own loan depended on the collateral too, so the possibility that one state government would veto an extension of the assets being frozen meant that the E.U. risked being “on the hook” should Ukraine fail to pay back the E.U.’s loan.

Incredibly, Andrew Moravcsik of Princeton University spoke at Harvard on the same day as the announcement of the E.U. loan that even though right-wing state governments in the E.U. have a loud bark, their bite is muted, meaning that in terms of government policy the impact is nil. He argued that they had to appease moderates to get enough support to have any impact on actual policy. Yet Hungary’s refusal to consider any of the longer periods to keep the Russian assets frozen in the E.U. meant that the E.U. and U.S. had to assume more risk in lending to Ukraine. One need only point to the refusal of Orbán’s government to pay the €200 million fine levied by the European Court of Justice, the E.U.’s supreme court, because the Hungarian government had violated E.U. law, and to the violation itself, plus Hungary’s threat to bus migrants to the E.U. capital, to know that the ideology of Orbán’s party was indeed having an impact in policy. This had hardly escaped the notice of the Commission and the ECJ. The implication is that the E.U. could ill-afford the principle of unanimity for any E.U. competency; Euro-skeptic ideology could indeed impact policy at the federal level—and, yes, the E.U. had a federal system even in 2024 of dual-sovereignty (hence the union was not an international organization or a “bloc”). Too much sovereignty remained with the state governments in the form of the veto that they could wield in the Council, and the harm can be seen in the possibility that Ukrainians would not have enough heat during the upcoming winter. Is collective action really so bad? Should one state be able to thwart it on ideological grounds?

I submit that the E.U.’s effort is laudatory but that the E.U. itself contains its own obstacle in continuing with the principle of unanimity in the Council that represents the states. Just imagine the impact on U.S. policies if one state could defeat a measure in the U.S. Senate. Even though the E.U. had fewer states at the time, there were too many for unanimity to be at all realistic on most matters. Empire-scale unions inevitably have states that differ from each other culturally and ideologically. Majority voting and qualified majority voting accommodate this fact, whereas the principle of unanimity does not.

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “EU to Raise €35 Billion Loan for Ukraine Using Russia’s Frozen Assets, Von der Leyen Says,” Euronews.com, September 20, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

The E.U. on Hungary: Beyond Symbolic Measures

Any federal system of government must function fundamentally as a unit even though the states are semi-sovereign, as is the federal level. The Nullification Crisis in the U.S. during the nineteenth century highlighted the plight a federal union would face were state governments able to ignore federal law unilaterally. Fortunately, President Jackson was able to get South Carolina to stand down on this point. In 2024, the E.U.'s federal officials were having trouble getting the state of Hungary not only to apply a federal directive within the state, but also to stop contradicting the E.U.'s foreign policy against Putin's Russia in Ukraine by engaging in diplomatic trips of appeasement. A federal system that lacks the means procedurally or substantively to protect federal prerogatives against the contradictory actions of wayward states is not viable in the long term.

Every E.U. state government is bound by Article 24.3 of the E.U.’s basic law, which mandates that those governments must support the union’s foreign policy “actively and unreservedly in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity.”[1] It is not often that a E.U. official mentions the obligation of loyalty in reference to the states toward the union, but the normative glue should not be ignored or even trivialized, especially given the preponderance of residual sovereignty that the state governments enjoy in the E.U.’s federal system. Josep Borell, the E.U.’s foreign minister, was referring to Viktor Orbán of the state of Hungary, whose “peace mission” to Moscow and Beijing coincided with the state of Hungary’s six-month presidency of the Council of the E.U. in early July, 2024. “Any so-called ‘peace mission’ that ignores” that Russia is the aggressor in Ukraine “is, at the end of the day, only benefitting Putin and will not bring peace.”[2] Borell was referring back to Orbán’s previous characterization of the union’s supplies of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine as a “pro-war policy.”[3] “The only one who’s pro-war is Putin,” Borell stated.[4] Referring to Orbán’s statement as belonging “to the realm of a lack of loyal cooperation,” Borell said, “We have to send a signal, even if it’s a symbolic signal, that being against the foreign policy of the European Union and disqualifying the policy of the European Union as the ‘party of war’ has to have consequences.”[5] The informal meeting of the foreign ministers of the states, known as Gymnich, would take place in Brussels rather than in Hungary’s state capital, Budapest. This move is indeed symbolic, for the official meetings are not subject to the 6-month rotating presidencies of the states.

The question is thus whether Borell’s use of the symbolic was sufficient to enforce Article 24.3 on the loyalty that the state governments owe to the union with respect to its foreign policy. I submit that a symbolic gesture, at best a “slap on the wrist,” is not sufficient to forestall undercutting moves by the governors of the state governments, for the political interests of the latter may differ from that of the union as a whole, and symbol is no match for real politic.

As Borell himself admitted, Orbán’s continued veto of military assistance for Ukraine was ongoing, and it was totally legal under E.U. basic law. Moving an informal meeting to Brussels would not change Orbán’s use of his state’s veto in the European Council. Nor would the states sending lower-level civil servants to an informal meeting of state interior/justice officials in Budapest. Arnoldas Abramavicius, Lithuania’s Deputy Minister of the Interior, refused to call sending lower level politicians a boycott; he would not even state that Orbán’s diplomatic trips to Moscow and Beijing violate the E.U. foreign policy against Russia. “I think this is a reaction towards Hungary’s external activity maybe sometimes not adjusted to the European framework,” he said at the meeting.[6] The diplomatic trips designed to negotiate with an aggressor with whom the E.U. would not negotiate is worse than merely not being coordinated or adjusted with the federal policy, which, by the way, is not a framework.

In fact, Borell undercut his argument and the E.U. itself by how he put the matter of the states’ foreign policy power. “Each member state is sovereign on its foreign policy—true. But as far as they’re members of this club, they have to obey the treaties.”[7] Given Article 24.3, however, each state’s foreign policy was not sovereign, for it could not contradict the union’s foreign policy. Moreover, the E.U. itself was not a club even as of 2024. The European Court of Justice had repeatedly ruled that federal laws, regulations, and directives are binding on the states, and the ECJ’s decisions are binding on the state courts as well as the state governments. Furthermore, clubs do not have a directly elected legislature such as the European Parliament, and, moreover, all three branches of government. Given the preponderance of governmental sovereignty residing with the states in 2024, the E.U. could ill afford being rhetorically diminished by one of its own officials, especially in the midst of a struggle between the union and a sitting governor.

A letter signed by over 63 state lawmakers addressed to the top three E.U. officials insists that Hungary’s Orbán had “caused significant damage” by his two diplomatic trips, so it was not merely a matter of not being adjusted to the E.U.’s foreign policy in which Putin is squarely the aggressor in the war.[8] Appropriately, the state officials called on the union “to suspend Hungary’s voting rights in the European Council” because “mere verbal condemnation” of the wayward state government has “no effect.”[9] Nor does merely moving the location of an informal meeting and sending lower-level officials.

That the European Council had not already suspended Hungary’s voting rights not only due to Orbán’s efforts to appease (Von der Leyen’s word) Putin but also the European Court of Justice’s ruling that Hungary had refused to implement a federal directive suggests that the union is vulnerable to defections by state governments with all but symbolic impunity. To apply anything close to unanimity for the voting rights of a state in the European Council to be stripped is itself not only foolhardy, but undercutting as well. An amendment applying qualified majority voting to sanctioning a violating state in the European Council would improve the coherence and functioning of the union at the federal level in line with the rule of law, while a state government deprived of its voting rights could still appeal to the European Court of Justice concerning the fairness of the mechanism and how it is being applied.

It bears noting that the Titanic could not avoid the iceberg in part because the ship’s rudder was too small, given the size of the ship. Or, if an analogy of several ships is preferred, a line spoken by a European in the film, The Godfather, Part III, applies: “Our ships must all sail in the same direction.” For one ship to sail not only apart from the others, but then into them must surely not be permitted. Appeasing or even just negotiating separately with Putin while referring to the E.U. foreign policy as pro-war even while vetoing military assistance to Ukraine should have been met with more than a symbolic response by E.U. federal officials, and the fact that it was not is an indication that the federal system contains a significant vulnerability, or weakness, that should be redressed especially before additional states are permitted to join the union.

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “Borrell Accuses Orbán of Disloyalty and Joins Boycott Against Hungary’s E.U. Presidency,” Euronews, July 22, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Caitlin Danaher, “E.U. Moves High-Level Meetings Out of Budapest to Protest Orbán’s Ukraine War Stance,” CNN, July 22, 2024.
7. Jorge Liboreiro, “Borrell Accuses Orbán of Disloyalty and Joins Boycott Against Hungary’s E.U. Presidency,” Euronews, July 22, 2024.
8. Caitlin Danaher, “E.U. Moves High-Level Meetings Out of Budapest to Protest Orbán’s Ukraine War Stance,” CNN, July 22, 2024.
9. Ibid.