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.

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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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.

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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.

Bulgaria: From the Lion to the Euro

Just weeks after the government of the E.U. state of Bulgaria resigned amid protests against the rampant corruption, the state traded in its currency, the levs, which means lion, for the federal currency, the euro. In the new year, 2026, Bulgaria stood to relieve holders of the state’s debt and to tame the endemic inflation that has plagued the state’s economy. In November, 2025, for example, food prices had risen by 5% year-on-year, “more than double the eurozone average.”[1] The term “eurozone” is actually problematic, as it, like the application of the jargon, “bloc,” to the E.U. itself is meant to obfuscate readers regarding the genre of the political, federal union. To claim that Bulgaria joined a currency zone is inferior stating that the state adopted the federal currency. Stated properly, the currencies in the E.U. can be compared with those that were in the early U.S., and all of those combinations of state and federal currencies can be held to be compatible with federalism.

When the U.S. “bloc” began in 1776, the members were sovereign countries and therefore they had their own currencies. The federal dollar commenced in 1785. The member-states had their own currencies until 1788, so those currencies were concurrent with the federal dollar for three years. The E.U.’s model has been that state governments can choose whether to retain their own currency or adopt the euro, so no state can have both its own currency and the euro as legal tender at the same time. The E.U. and U.S. provide us with various combinations regarding currencies in a federal system, none of those combinations being at variance with federalism itself. In fact, the salient feature of dual-sovereignty that characterizes early-modern federalism—which is distinct from confederalism, wherein the states hold all rather than just some of governmental sovereignty—is arguably most consistent with two currencies being legal tender. This is not to say that the U.S. got this right for three years when both state and federal currencies were legal tender in their respective jurisdictions. The American “bloc” was a confederation until 1989, after which the federal governmental institutions and the states both had at least some portion of the governmental sovereignty in the system. When dual-sovereignty came into effect, only the federal currency was legal tender throughout the union.

Of course, like the U.S. in its first several decades, the E.U. in 2025 still suffered from being dominated by its states at the expense of collective action at the federal level. Because one of the chief benefits of a federal system of dual sovereignty is that the states can operate as a check against excessive federal encroachment and the federal institutions can operate as a check against excesses, such as corruption and anti-democratic tyranny, in state governments. The latter check has been severely hampered in the E.U. because the state governments dominate even at the federal level. The adoption of the federal currency by Bulgaria can be viewed as a step in the direction of achieving federal-state balance of power because, as Christine Legarde, president of the E.U.’s central bank, said at the time, the euro is a “powerful symbol” of “shared values and collective strength.”[2] Such strength has been the big loser as the heads of the state governments have resisted, as per their political self-interest, proposing and voting for additional transfers of governmental sovereignty to the federal governmental institutions (i.e., government) in the executive and legislative branches.

So perhaps it can be said that dual currencies fits best with dual sovereignty, at least theoretically, but that this presupposes a balance of power between the state and federal governmental institutions. In the case of a “bottom-heavy” federal system, such as the U.S. was through the nineteenth century, and as the E.U. has been through at least its first three decades, as many states as possible should replace their respective currencies with the euro. Admittedly, even if the 27 rather than just 21 E.U. states would adopt the euro, this would not in itself mean that the E.U.’s hand would be strengthened in defense and foreign policy to push Russia back from Ukraine and Israel out of Gaza and the West Bank. Given the tremendous imbalance of power, however, such that the E.U. has had trouble in asserting collective action for the benefit of the whole union rather than just a few states, a powerful symbol of collective strength could help to dispel the allure of the anti-federalist, or Euroskeptic, ideology.

That intangible benefit is irreducibly political, and as such, it can be easily dismissed by E.U. citizens who are in denial regarding the distinctively political genre of their union. For such people, the adoption of the federal currency by more states is viewed primarily as potentially strengthening weak state economies and bad monetary policies. This applies especially to the adoption by small, corrupt states—Bulgaria being roughly equivalent to Maryland in population in 2025. After being turned out of office by mass protests against the systemic governmental corruption, the state government of Bulgaria certainly could not be relied upon to resist the temptation to inflate its currency given the public debt there. Generally speaking, corrupt people lack the self-discipline necessary to govern anything. The E.U.’s central bank was much more reliable, especially with Lagarde having been at the helm for many years, than the government of the E.U. state of Bulgaria. As salient as this benefit is in the state’s adoption of the euro, the impact, although subtle and largely symbolic, on European political integration, already under way, is worthy enough not to be relegated or ignored outright. The power of symbol can be louder in the long run that a lion’s roar. After all, as Leo well knows, the lion comes only late in the summer, when the heat of those dog-days can be unbearable. 

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1. Aleksandar Brezar, “Bulgaria Switches to the Euro Amid Mixed Reactions from Its Citizens,” Euronews.com, 1 January, 2026.
2. Ibid.

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

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

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

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

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

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

U.S. Presidential Encroachment on State Prerogatives

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Police Ignoring Laws in Florida: A Case of Systemic Corruption

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Entangling Confederalism and Modern Federalism: A European Quagmire

On America’s Thanksgiving Day, 2025, Dmytro Kuleba, a former foreign minister of Ukraine, was asked whether Ukraine’s government officials could trust American officials negotiating with the Russian officials, given the fact that Steve Witkoff, the U.S. Envoy at the time, had recently been caught coaching Kirill Dmitriev, a top Russian official, on how to get U.S. President Don Trump on the side of Putin even though the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine was still in violation of international law, which, by the way, trumps historical reasons, such as a lost Russian empire. Stalin’s forced famine in Ukraine during the 1930s would seem to nullify any imperial claims from the past. Kuleba relied to the journalist’s question with, “Not really, but we do not have another America.”[1] He was really giving Europe a wake-up call, but the problem there was not a lack of consensus, but a structural deficiency in the federal system of the European Union.

The full essay is at "We Don't Have Another America."

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1. Mared Gwyn Jones, “European Decision-Making on Ukraine ‘Embarrassing,’ Former Foreign Minister Kuleba Says,” Euronews.com, November 27, 2025.

Belgium Eclipses the E.U. on Frozen Russian Assets

Even though the U.S. has compromised the health of its federal system by consolidating so much governmental sovereignty with the Union at the expense of the reserved and residual sovereignty of the states, pitfalls exist at the other extreme too. In the E.U., as long as the states can exercise their sovereignty in foreign policy without respect to the Union, the risk exists that any one state could put its distinct political and economic interests first even if that forestalls united action that the EU could muster on the world’s stage. The risk is aggravated when government officials of a state presume to speak for the entire Union as if they were federal officials. That undercuts the point of having a union of states. The adage, Either we all sail together or we are done for, seems not well known in the state capitals, and even in the European Council and the Council of the European Union.

In early September, 2025, days after E.U. President von der Leyen publicly reopened the matter of using Russian financial assets frozen in the E.U. to pay for Ukraine’s defense and reconstruction, Maxime Prévot, a government official in the state of Belgium told the media that “confiscating those Russian sovereign assets is really not an option for Belgium.”[1] Most of the €200 billions of frozen Russian funds was “held in the Euroclear depository which is subject to EU financial markets regulation.”[2] So even though “Prévot said breaching the rules even in the case of an existential war would leave Belgium and the EU exposed” as risky places for countries to deposit funds, it was the E.U. rather than Belgium to decide on whether to change the financial regulations.[3] It was for the E.U. rather than for a self-interested state such as Belgium to weigh whether making an exception would in Prévot’s words, “create huge bad impact, systemic consequences for the credibility of the European financial services.”[4] At the time, Belgium was not in charge of the European financial services. Even as Belgian officials sought to protect banks in Belgium, the E.U. was in a better position to weigh the risks to future deposits of sovereign wealth funds by other countries against the geostrategic risks should Russia take over Ukraine, and perhaps then look to some eastern E.U. states to invade next. Protecting Belgian banks should not outweigh the strategic interests of the E.U. in pushing back Russia’s President Putin from helping himself to Eastern Europe.

This is essentially an argument that more governmental sovereignty in foreign policy should be delegated to the E.U. from its states, and that state economic interests should not be allowed to forestall such policy. Putting the interests of a part above those of the whole is usually self-defeating, for the dominance of a part can come at the expense of the good of the whole when a united front is needed. Prévot could certainly express his view, but he could not speak for, much less direct, the regulation of the European financial services sector. Moreover, geopolitical interests in international relations and foreign policy do not reduce to what is best for financial regulation.

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1. Shona Murray, “Belgium Will Not Transfer Frozen Russian Assets Despite Commission’s Plans—FM Prévot,” Euronews.com, 5 September, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

Trump Meets Putin on Ukraine: On the Exclusion of the E.U.

Like proud male birds dancing for a female for the chance to reproduce, U.S. President Trump and Ukraine’s Zelensky engaged in public posturing ahead of the negotiations set to take place between Trump and Vlad the Impaler Putin of Russia in Alaska on August 15, 2025. For the public, to take the postures as real positions, set in stone, would be nothing short of depraved naivete. Missing in action in all this posturing was E.U. President Van der Leyen and the E.U.’s foreign minister. Instead, the governors of two, albeit large, E.U. states were busy making demands as if their respective political bases were more powerful than the E.U. as a whole. In short, Van der Leyen missed an opportunity to join the dance of posturing.

The full essay is at "Trump Meets Putin on Ukraine." 

Texas Overreaching

With enough Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives staying in Illinois and New York as of August 3, 2025 that the legislative chamber could not reach a quorum and thus be able to hold a vote on a Congressional redistricting plan that could gain the Republic Party five more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, Greg Abbott, who at the time was Texas’ head of state and head of the executive branch, was considering various options to bring the lawmakers back. That only one of those options was legal points to the importance of the rule of law being applied to government officials.

The most egregious option, legally speaking, had been proposed by the Attorney General, Ken Paxton, who wrote, the “cowards should be found, arrested, and brought back to the Capitol immediately.”[1] In other words, police whose jurisdiction is limited to Texas would be able to have the jurisdiction expanded by Abbot. “He has no legal mechanism,” Rep. Jolando Jones, one of the departed Texas lawmakers said; “Subpoenas from Texas don’t work in New York, so he can’t come and get us. Subpoenas in Texas don’t work in [Illinois].”[2] The Texas Supreme Court had ruled in 2021 that leaders of the House of Representatives had the authority to “physically compel the attendance” of missing representatives, but not even a decision by Texas’s Supreme Court can reach into Illinois or New York; only the U.S. Supreme Court has jurisdiction throughout the bloc.[3] Hyperextending police-power in Texas beyond even the jurisdiction of the Texas Supreme Court would set a bad precedent that could be used even to cover police brutality. That the Attorney General of Texas suggested the blatantly illegal usurping of Illinois’s retained sovereignty by extending that of Texas is itself troubling. In a federal system, it is necessary that everyone colors within the lines.

Abbott was also considering what was only “a nonbinding legal opinion issued by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton that suggested a court could determine that a legislator had forfeited {one’s] office.”[4] Based only on Paxton’s legal opinion, Abbott said he would “begin trying to remove Democratic lawmakers from office.”[5] Presumably he would make the request to a judge rather than remove the lawmakers by his own authority, which again would be illegal even by Paxton’s reasoning.

The only option backed up by extant law that Abbott was considering is fining the absent lawmakers $500 a day, though even that option was being twisted by Ken Paxton, who was running for the U.S. Senate at the time. He “suggested that lawmakers may have committed felonies by raising money to help pay for fines they could face.”[6] So it was apparently illegal to have someone one pay one’s fine. Be careful in Texas if a friend or relative, or even a charity organization, is willing to pay your traffic ticket; you may be committing a felony, which, by the way, is a type of federal law. Perhaps Paxton was actually positioning himself for, or worse, already saw himself, as the U.S. Attorney General rather than a U.S. senator.

That the options that Greg Abbott, the figure-head and chief executive of the Texas government, was considering tended to push beyond what was legal at the time is itself worthy of noticing, for such power-aggrandizement by a member-state in a federal system can, if it were to spread, doom that system as state governments turn on each other and the U.S. president takes sides, thus undercutting that presiding role.

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1. Joey Cappelletti and Andrew DeMillo, “Texas Governor Threatens to Remove Democrats Who Left State over Trump-backed Redistricting,” The Associated Press, August 4, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. I am using a word that is popular in the E.U. for a federal system in which governmental sovereignty is split between a union and states. In truth rather than ideology, “bloc” applies neither to the E.U. or U.S.
4. Joey Cappelletti and Andrew DeMillo, “Texas Governor Threatens to Remove Democrats Who Left State over Trump-backed Redistricting,” italics added for emphasis.
5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

Russia Benefits from Flawed E.U. Federalism

In the E.U., the 27 state governments are able to wield a veto on most important policy proposals in the European Council. Expecting unanimity where not even consensus is enough is so utterly unrealistic at 27 that it may be time to reconsider whether the E.U. can afford such an easy (and tempting) means by which state governors can exploit the E.U. by essentially holding it hostage. To be sure, like the filibuster in the U.S. Senate, the veto in the European Council represents the residual sovereignty that states in both unions enjoy, but extortion for financial gain by means of threatening or exercising a veto in the European Council (and the committees of the Council of the E.U.) suggests that the continued use of a veto by state governments is too problematic to be continued. Residual sovereignty can find adequate representation by qualified majority voting, which is closer the threshold needed to maintain a filibuster in the U.S. Senate. That the E.U. state of Slovakia maintained its veto on a proposed number of federal sanctions against Russia on July 9, 2025 when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia had violated international law in invading Ukraine is a good indication that the veto had outlived its usefulness and was being used by governors for sordid purposes by using the E.U. rather than strengthening it in foreign affairs.

On the very day when Ukraine’s President Zelensky and Pope Leo “discussed the Vatican as a possible location to host peace talks to end Russia’s full-scale invasion” and Zelensky thanked the pope for the Vatican’s help in reuniting 1,350 of more than 19,500 “children taken by Russia after Moscow’s 2022 invasion,”[1] the judges at the European Court of Human Rights, which is not part of the E.U., ruled that Russia’s government had violated international law not only by shooting down the MH17 commercial airliner, but also in “the murder, torture, rape, destruction of civilian infrastructure and kidnapping of Ukrainian children” in Ukraine.[2] Meanwhile, U.S. President Trump voiced frustration at Russia’s President Putin for not being willing to negotiate an end to the invasion, and Putin unleashed “a new record-breaking barrage of drones and missiles against Ukrainian cities.”[3]

On the very same day, the government of the E.U. state of Slovakia confirmed “that it would for the time being maintain its veto on the new package of sanctions that the European Union intends to impose on Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine.”[4] The additional sanctions would target “Russia’s financial and energy sectors, including the Nord Stream pipelines.”[5] Countries supplying or financing Russia’s war machine would also be subject to sanctions. Besides being politically tone-deaf, the wayward state government did not object to the economic restrictions per se, but rather, to “the proposed phase-out of all Russian fossil fuels by the end of 2027.”[6] But because qualified majority-voting rather than unanimity applies to the phase-out proposal, the Slovak governor “resorted to sanctions, which require unanimity, to extract concessions from Brussels.”[7] What kind of concessions?  Plain and simply, the extortion of the E.U. for money as “compensation” for anticipated financial damages, even though the legal opinion of E.U.’s executive branch is that the E.U. prohibition of gas from Russia would “act as ‘force majeure’ in court and shield governments and companies against damages.”[8]

At the very least, the state’s governor was politically tone-deaf on July 9, 2025, more concerned with exploiting the veto mechanism for money than with the visuals in advantaging Russia by vetoing sanctions as leverage for the fossil-fuel prohibition that is subject only to qualified majority vote. That Slovakia’s government had no objection to the economic sanctions and yet maintained a veto against them in order to gain leverage on the gas prohibition, effectively making that proposal subject to a veto, shows that the veto mechanism was indeed subject to abuse at the expense of qualified majority voting. This hyperextension of the veto mechanism to a bill subject only to qualified majority voting suggests that the two voting mechanisms cannot coexist. Power abhors obstacles, and qualified majority voting is an obstacle to state governments accustomed to being able to veto federal legislation and foreign-policy proposals. If indeed the governmental sovereignty retained by the states is sufficiently represented in qualified majority voting, which is 55% of the states and 55% of the population of the E.U., the veto power is an excessive block by states on federal action and the benefits to Europe that can come from collective action. Both the value of such benefits in federal legislation and foreign policy and the exploitation by state governments of their veto power at the federal level argue against retaining the veto mechanism. Slovakia has laid bare the imbalance in the E.U.’s federal system as bottom-heavy at the expense of benefits that could be realized by collective action. The abuse of the veto authority is sufficiently evident in a veto that benefits Russia being confirmed on the very same day that the top court in Europe on human rights ruled against Russia’s invasion and the Pope met with Zelensky on a way forward on peace even as Putin continued to stall for time to unleash more bombs.

Abstractly speaking concerning the E.U., the whole is more than the sum of the parts, and the whole suffers to the extent that a part is able to direct the whole. That each part maintains its integrity as a unit does not justify any part in being able to hold the whole hostage for financial gain. It is utterly unrealistic to assume that a policy or law of the whole is or should be in the political and economic interests of every part. Lastly, for a part to put itself above the whole is presumptuous and egocentric, which is to say, selfish. Given the salience of self-interest, which stems from self-love, in human nature, undermining mechanisms designed to curb exploitation by selfishness at the expense of overall good is utterly foolish in any political society.

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1. Gavin Blackburn, “Zelenskyy and Pope Leo XIV Suggest Vatican as Venue for Ukrainian Peace Talks,” Euronews.com, July 9, 2025.
2. Aleksandar Brezar, “Top European Court Rules Russia Violated International Law in Ukraine,” Euronews.com,
July 9, 2025.
3. Jorge Liboreiro, “Slovakia Maintains Veto on New Package of EU Sanctions against Russia,” Euronews.com, July 9, 2025.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.

Putting a State in Charge of the E.U.

If only Ukraine could become the 51^st member-state of the U.S., rather than the 28^th state of the E.U., given the veto of Viktor Orban of the E.U. state of Hungary on the E.U. annexing Ukraine. Besides the inherent problems that come with relying so much on the principle of unanimity in the European Council and the Council of the E.U., mislabeling the prime minister of the state that chairs the legislative committees known collectively as the Council of the E.U. as the E.U. president not only marginalizes the federal officials, including President Von der Leyen, who, as the head of the E.U.’s executive branch, can rightfully be considered as the president of the European Union. In contrast, government officials of a state chairing legislative committees can hardly be said to collectively be the “presidency” of the European Union. Behind the promotion of this fallacy is the anti-federalist, or Euroskeptic, political ideology that misconstrues the E.U. as merely a network of intergovernmental relations between the states.

Although the E.U., like the U.S., splits governmental sovereignty between two systems—that of the union and that of the states, the two unions have different ways in which state officials participate at the federal level. The official participation roles are greater in E.U. institutions than in U.S. institutions at the union level. In his book, Federal Government, Kenneth Wheare makes the point that federalism has two systems of government, neither of which is a “level” above the other. He is correct because the sovereignty remaining with state governments, which in both unions includes all residual sovereignty, is not “lower” than the exclusive or shared competencies, or enumerated domains of power, delegated to the federal governmental institutions. The fallacy of “levels” is much easier to grasp by looking that the European Union than the United States because of the extent of official roles in certain E.U. governmental institutions for state officials, whereas in the U.S., state officials lost their direct participation when U.S. senators became elected offices rather than by appointment by the respective state chief executives/heads of state/commanders in chief (i.e., “governors” being those who govern) or legislatures. This difference may be why so much governmental sovereignty will not be transferred from the system of state governments to the union’s governmental institutions in the E.U. by 100 or 200 years in the E.U. as in the U.S. as of the 249^th anniversary of the thirteen colonies boldly (as there was considerable risk) declaring themselves to be free and independent countries, then already in a military alliance (i.e., the Continental Congress).

On the day before the 249^th anniversary of 13 British colonies in North America declaring themselves to be sovereign countries, Ukrainian President Zelensky attended “the opening ceremony of the Danish EU Presidency in Aarhus.”[1] Depicting or characterizing Denmark as the “EU Presidency” is misleading, for the reference is to officials of that state chairing policy-domain specific committees rather than standing for the E.U. itself. The exaggeration is at the expense of recognition that the Commission’s head, Von der Leyen, a federal rather than a state official, has a greater claim to speak for the European Union. As president of the E.U.'s executive branch, Von der Leyen delivers the annual State of the Union address at the Parliament chamber, just as the president of the U.S. delivers the State of the Union in the U.S. House of Representatives' chamber. It is revealing that just before the Parliament's vote of confidence in Von der Leyen on July 10, 2025, a lawyer specialized in E.U. law predicted that even if the vote is favorable to Von der Leyen, more "and more [E.U.] citizens will ask themselves, is she really the right person to lead the E.U. in such turbulent times."[2] It is not as though the rotating 6-month "presidency" of whatever state government is chairing the committees known collectively as the Council of the E.U. could claim to be at the helm, and thus step in for a weakened Von der Leyen. 

Generally speaking, putting a state in charge of the E.U. would be loaded with intractable problems. In June of the same year, the governor of the E.U. state of France presumed to speak for the European Union rather than just for his state on foreign policy, effectively (and I suspect intentionally) sidelining the E.U.’s president and its foreign minister, an office that is deliberately mislabeled as the “High Representative” to appease Euroskeptics. 

Regarding the involvement of the state governments at the federal level, the President of the European Council, António Costa, had a greater claim than the chair of legislative committees to be referred to as a president, and Macron of France was not the federal official standing for the European Council. That the governor of the E.U. state of Denmark “vowed to support Ukraine’s accession process” to be annexed by the E.U. and to use the “presidency of the E.U. Council to put ‘maximum pressure’ on Hungary to lift its veto on Ukraine” being annexed by the E.U. is less significant than the pressure than the federal officials António Costa and Ursula von der Leyen could apply on Hungary’s governor.[3] In response the emphasis, for example, of the Danish foreign minister chairing the other state foreign ministers in one of the committees in the Council of the E.U., Viktor Orban could more easily relegate Von der Leyen, Kaja Kallas and António Costa and thus deflate pressure from the E.U. itself, which is greater than a committee of state officials chaired by a Danish state official.

In other words, the paralyzing impact of retaining vetoes in the European Council and the Council of the E.U. is exacerbated by falsely portraying a state government as the “Presidency of the E.U.” The Parliament and the Commission even together may be too weak to counter the power of the states in the E.U. governmental system within the federal system; mislabeling a state as the E.U. Presidency only exacerbates the imbalance, even if it is a policy of officials of that state to resist the veto of another state. The E.U. is more than being the simple aggregate of the states, and the European Court of Justice, the European Commission, and the European Parliament are all institutions of the E.U. that manifest the E.U. being more than the sum of its states. Just as balance is important between the system of state governments and the system of the federal government in a federal system, so too balance of power is important between the branches of government, and in this respect the federal government should be distinguished from state government within a federal system because only in the former are some institutions representing states and others represent federal citizens. It is important that the power of the state officials in union institutions not overwhelm the power of federal officials in other union-institutions, lest particular state interests dominate those of the whole. Denmark may have its own economic and political interests with respect to Ukraine, whereas Von der Leyen and Kallas represent the E.U.’s interests rather than those of any state. Overstating the salience of the state governments in E.U. governance at the expense of federal officials.

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1. Evelyn Ann-Marie Dom and Jorge Liboreiro, “Ukraine Will Do ‘Anything’ to Advance EU Accession Talks Despite Hungary Veto, Zelenskyy Says,” Euronews.com, July 3, 2025.
2. Sandor Zsiros, "EU Parliament Censure Vote Leaves von der Leyen Weakened, even in Victory," Euronews.com, July 10, 2025, italics added.

3.  Evelyn Ann-Marie Dom and Jorge Liboreiro, “Ukraine Will Do ‘Anything’ to Advance EU Accession Talks Despite Hungary Veto, Zelenskyy Says,” Euronews.com, July 3, 2025.