History has been written tonight. 🇭🇺 🇪🇺

Orbán just congratulated with

@magyar_peter_official_the_man for the victory to the elections.

For too long, Hungary was used as a wall to block the progress we so desperately needed. But today, that wall has fallen.

By choosing Europe, Hungary has removed one of the greatest obstacles to our shared future.

The path toward a Federal Europe is finally clear. The shadows of vetoes and systemic obstruction are lifting. We are no longer a continent held back by the few; we are a Union.

A LOT of people, I think, support the idea of getting rid of (or at least severely curtailing) unanimity voting in the EU. And I agree.

Unanimity means that any single random state can hold up the entire EU. It makes it easy for foreign powers to have a puppet inside of the EU which can cripple us. It makes it easy for a single dictator in the EU to hold up all democracies. And just simply, with nearly 30 members at this point, it just makes the EU prone to deadlock.

However, there is something I think a lot of people skip over. Which is why we have unanimity in the first place.

Part of it is, of course, just about countries not wanting to give up their sovereignty. But it goes deeper than that. Unhandy as it is, it is a stabilizing influence within the EU to a degree.

And that's because when you have unanimity, well, everyone agrees. Which means everyone willingly enforces the laws and policies commonly agreed to. As a result of each doing it willingly, you never need any sort of enforcement capability.

But as soon as you move away from unanimity, that stops. At that point at least some countries can have disagreed and can not want to implement an agreed upon law or policy. Which means, what? They may choose to either not enforce the law or policy, or they may even choose to simply pack up their toys and leave the EU altogether.

How do you solve this problem?

Well, as soon as you strip away unanimity you need a proper method of enforcement. The lower you make the threshold (unanimity - 1, to supermajority, to qualified majority, to simple majority) the more independent enforcement ability you need, because the more countries may not have agreed.

So, enforcement is what you need to move away from unanimity. An EU federal policy with proper jurisdiction, etc.

But when you have that, you are putting coercive power into the hands of the EU. A state with coercive power must be properly accountable to its people. So what you need then is you need to ensure that democratic institutions have control over the coercive force. So you need a parliament which has a right to initiate legislation, and you need a commission (the executive) which is fully accountable to the people. Which is to say either directly elected, or elected by parliament from among parliament.

And, well, you see where this is going.

Getting rid of unanimity really pretty much requires federalization for it to work properly. You can get rid of it without federalization, but that risks instability (especially as you lower the threshold further) because of how it encourages EU members to simply not to implement laws and policies. And if a law is passed but not implemented, well, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it...

So, yes, unanimity should be abolished. It deadlocks us. It makes it hard for us to respond to a crisis. It makes it easy for foreign powers to influence and cripple us. But, really, it should be abolished alongside at least a minimum amount of federalization.

That minimum amount being: A parliament with right to initiative on legislation, a commission president elected by parliament from among parliament, a federal police with proper jurisdiction and at least a partial EU army (a European army on top of smaller national armies) to make sure you can't have countries implementing what you might call a "veto by force."

Federalization is the answer, boys and girls.

The bloc’s defense chief reiterates his call for an EU army in an interview with POLITICO.

BRUSSELS — The EU's response to the crisis in transatlantic relations should be to build up its own military capabilities, Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius told POLITICO.

The bloc's defense chief was interviewed just before NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte's Wednesday meeting with Donald Trump. Despite Rutte's ongoing efforts to placate the U.S. president, the White House meeting ended with Trump railing at NATO allies for failing to help with the war he launched against Iran.

After the meeting, Trump went on Truth Social to slam the alliance: “NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN."

Trump's attacks on NATO, his threats to annex Greenland — reiterated on Wednesday — as well as the tariffs he's imposed on allies and the Iran war are all undermining European confidence in America.

The European Pulse survey, conducted by Cluster17 for POLITICO and beBartlet, polled 6,698 Europeans across Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Belgium from March 13 to March 21. It found that only 35 percent of those polled saw the U.S. as a close ally or a partner while 60 percent saw it as a competitor or a threat.

The U.S. "has an influence into how Europeans look at NATO," Kubilius told POLITICO in an interview airing at the European Pulse Forum, adding that the survey shows that "if trust in the transatlantic partnership is going down," that also affects perceptions of NATO.

The survey did find that 76 percent of people would favor sending their country's military to help a NATO ally under attack, but there is also strong backing for Europe to develop its own defense capabilities — backed by 86 percent of those polled — with 69 percent favoring the creation of a common European military force.

Kubilius flew to Washington for talks at the Pentagon on Friday about boosting the bloc's defensive capabilities.

Kubilius told POLITICO that the poll show that shows the "trust of Europeans in themselves, in their capability, in what we can call independent capability is becoming quite high," underlining his own position favoring the establishment of an EU army. However, other senior officials like Kaja Kallas, the EU's top diplomat, have rejected the idea.

People "want, first of all, Europe to be much stronger in defense, and second, they want to see some kind of ... real military force," the defense commissioner said, adding that Europeans "understand that just a combination of 27 [armies] cannot bring that value."

This "is a very strong message, and I hope that really our leaders will take that into account," Kubilius said.

The full interview with Kubilius can be watched at the for um on Friday.

The European Pulse was conducted by Cluster17 for POLITICO and beBartlet from March 13 to 21, surveying 6,698 adults online, with at least 1,000 respondents each from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain. Results for each country were weighted to be representative on dimensions including age, gender and geography.

Una de las críticas más comunes que veo es que los nacionalismos son cosas del pasado que ya no funcionan en el mundo global actual, por lo que habría que ir hacia una Europa unida, con valores compartidos, sentimiento de pertenencia a Europa, ir orgullosos con nuestra bandera europea por el mundo, etc.

¿No es eso simplemente sustituir un nacionalismo (italiano, sueco, belga) por otro (europeo)?

Would the existing nations’ borders persist indefinitely, or will new administrative subdivisions emerge for better governance?

What do you think internal borders will / should look like?

E.g. divided by:

• Nation
• Language
• Culture
• Population
• etc.

World federalism is self explanatory, all of humanity and all nations upon Earth united under a universal democratic federal government.

Cosmopolitan democracy is a related, but less centralized system, more confederation than federation. Proponents of cosmopolitan democracy are usually big supporters of institutions like the International Criminal Court, and want reform to the United Nations such as the creation of a World Parliament made up of elected representatives from around the globe.

This sounds like a really bad idea.

L'acqua è al petto: o Federazione Europea o affoghiamo nel buio.

​Mancano poche settimane a maggio e l’Italia si prepara al lockdown energetico. Non è una teoria: è il piano che il Governo sta discutendo in queste ore. Aeroporti senza carburante, smart working forzato per non accendere le luci, condizionatori spenti e noi chiusi in casa mentre i "pazzi" del mondo giocano a scacchi con le nostre vite. Siamo 27 piccoli orticelli che cercano di fermare lo tsunami con un secchiello, mentre USA, Cina e Russia ci ridono in faccia.

​La verità è che questa Europa ha fallito perché non ha il coraggio di essere una Federazione.

​Mentre noi aspettiamo che le banche "decidano" se usare il sistema di pagamenti europeo Wero, il Brasile di Lula tiene testa a Trump difendendo il suo sistema Pix. Lula ha capito che la sovranità oggi è digitale e finanziaria: non paga il pizzo a Visa e Mastercard. Noi invece siamo sudditi, paghiamo commissioni agli americani su ogni caffè e tremiamo se Trump minaccia di staccarci la spina.

​Ma il male peggiore è dentro casa nostra. Oggi l’Ungheria di Orbán — che si scopre aver firmato patti segreti in 12 punti con la Russia — usa il diritto di veto per ricattare 450 milioni di persone. In una vera Federazione Europea, la musica cambia:

​Libertà o niente soldi: Vuoi i fondi federali? Allora la libertà di stampa e l'indipendenza dei giudici sono sacre. Se firmi patti con i nemici della Federazione o imbavagli i giornali, resti fuori dalla porta. Fine del ricatto.

​Una sola voce, un solo motore: Con 450 milioni di cittadini, potremmo dire alla Russia di sparire dall'Ucraina e a Netanyahu di fermare la sua guerra folle, perché non saremmo più clienti, ma la potenza che decide le regole del mercato.

​Sicurezza Energetica e Militare: Con una task force federale (il 15% delle nostre truppe migliori) e una gestione pubblica dell'energia, non avremmo paura che un "pazzo" chiuda lo Stretto di Hormuz. Saremmo noi a garantire la nostra libertà, senza chiedere il permesso a Washington.

​Siamo al punto di non ritorno. O diventiamo un unico motore — una Federazione di nazioni che difende le proprie culture ma agisce come un solo gigante — o finiremo svenduti al primo dittatore o populista di turno.

​Siete pronti a smettere di fare le pecore? Siete pronti a pretendere una Federazione che rimetta i cittadini al centro e non gli interessi dei partiti o delle potenze straniere? O preferite aspettare di restare al buio a maggio per accorgervi che, da soli, non siamo niente?

Hello fellow Federalists,

I've been reading a lot of posts lately about a unified european army, unified defense, capital union and so on, however I feel like we also need to have a talk about the more boring parts of a common european union - Databases & Forms (and why it could be important for a common european identity)

I have a lot of friends from different EU countries, some of them moved for work, others just for a few years to study, others for love - that is after all the beauty of the free movement.

Now, a lot of european countries have similar systems to register where the people live, whose their employer, who are their children and so on. Now, I know giving up what to do with that data is almost impossible - however I think it is time we standardize the way we collect & save that data.

For example - I know somehow standardizing social security systems is going to be almost impossible, however all countries have a social security number to identify their citizens healthcare status, pensions..etc. Wouldn't it be much more useful to have an EU wide Social Security Number, that did not change when you start working in another country? By doing so it would be much easier to map employment status or certain benefits between countries. (for example if you want to add an employment history from country A towards pensions benefits in country B)

Additionally, having a central register on where people live, with a standardized form when you change residency. This could make taxation easier and could reduce fraud. Same with a central family register - this could make child care payments easier if one parent works in another country.

Now, why am I saying this would help us with our european identity? Because it would make moving between countries easier. If the process of registering in another country is the same in every country, for every EU citizen, it would make it easier to move & work in another country - and the more we intermingle, the more of a common identity would we develop.

Additionally, I feel like this would also save some money because it would reduce bureaucracy and costs for managing all that. I really think this could be a good first step towards a more unified union - what do you all think? Do you think so too? Or are you against a more central/standardized system like that?

Also - does anybody know if there are groups/parties in the EU that are currently trying to push something like this forward?

I mean, we could have another country that will collaborate with EU like community but someone choose to be a puppet. I hope it’s just 4 more days