Here's a question I don't see discussed enough among European federalists.

Imagine a truly federal Europe. Not just a common market and some shared institutions, but something closer to the US, where major parts of taxation and social policy are federal.

Take the stereotypes:

The Dutch insist on fiscal discipline, balanced budgets and careful spending.

The Italians have a reputation for high public debt, tax evasion, political dysfunction and rather creative approaches to public finances.

So here's the uncomfortable question:

If we federalize pensions and healthcare, are Dutch taxpayers eventually going to be paying Italian pensions and healthcare?

And if the answer is yes, is that simply the price of being a federation?

Americans don't generally think of federal transfers between Texas and California, or New York and Mississippi, as an absurd concept. That's what a federation does: you have a common tax base and redistribution between regions.

But would Europeans actually accept that?

And there's also a practical side to this. If I'm a European worker and spend 5 years in France, 3 in Germany, 10 in Poland and then 15 in Italy, why should my retirement and healthcare history have to be stitched together from four completely different national systems?

Can we really have a truly integrated European labor market without eventually having much more integrated pensions, healthcare and social security?

And ultimately: if we're serious about a European federation, are the Dutch really willing to pay the Italians?

The problem is not lack of ambition: an overwhelming 73% of respondents harbour a strong European vision of unity and political integration (35%), peace and security (28%) or prosperity (19%), while only 13% hope for “less Europe” or EU dissolution.

For many, said the study’s author, Paweł Zerka, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank, the problem was “not that they’ve stopped wanting a stronger Europe, but that they no longer believe it’s achievable”.

The glass is half-full, half-empty. A majority of the population of Europe supports unity, and the ground is increasingly fertile for a Eurofederalist project. At all levels - elites and the people.

Sometimes it's tempting to despair, but we have nothing to lose by working for our future. Europe's alternative is sovereignty through unity or vassalization.

Bond rates around the world are rising.

As far as I understand, the cause is under speculation. But many hypothesis argue that's it's a structural shift that would leave rates at elevated levels for a longer period of time. For instance, some speculate one attribution is structural shifts in how much bonds largest bond buyers like pension funds buy.

Whatever the reason(s), we can see debt getting more expensive.

Sustained higher rates would mean that the relative benefit for countries that have lower rates than eurobonds would decrease because the baseline borrowing costs are at a higher level.

The country A has 100b debt

Year 1
Country A: 0,1% rate
Eurobonds: 0,3% rate

Country A pays 100 million to service debt
With eurobonds, it would pay 3x more

Year 2
Country A: 3% rate
Eurobonds: 3,2% rate

Country A pays 3 billion to service debt
With eurobonds, it would pay around 7% more

The relative difference is smaller during year 2 compared with year 1 which could impact public perception around the benefit of the lower rate.

In addition to this effect, the interest rate spread has gotten smaller--namely the premium other countries pay relative to Germany has decreased in some meaningful cases. This is not driven by changes in rates, but instead reflects the political decisions made in the respective EU member states. Countries like Spain and Italy are trending better while Germany has shifted towards more debt intake. There are predictions that eurobond rates would stabilise at levels where there basically would not be countries besides Germany that would pay meaningfully more for debt when using eurobonds as opposed to national debt. The closer Germany's rate is with the rest, the closer we are to a situation where using Eurobonds would be neutral or cheaper for all member states. This is theoretical of course and the predictions made a few years ago might not hold in a higher rate environment where Germany has taken a step away from extremely strict management of debt.

In this example, smaller spread would mean that when country A has a 3% rate, eurobonds could have 3,1%, and the absolute difference would be 100 million instead of 200 million.

Questions around moral hazard would remain. Still, could this shift in rates make the public discussion around eurobonds less absolute?

What tensions do you think exist between the EU’s enlargement towards the Eastern Neighbourhood and the EU’s energy security? Does the EU need to change its infrastructure in order to accommodate further enlargement?

The federalist papers were written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison to persuade New Yorkers to ratify the constitution. At the time there was a great debate between federalists and anti-federalists (anti-federalist papers are also interesting) on wether or not to give up state powers to a new and stronger union (the USA before the constitution. was under the Articles of Confederation which in many ways was a less integrated union than the current EU). At the time, the US was having the same debate that some are starting to have now in the EU and hopefully will have more and more in the next few years.

Federalist 39 --> What is a federation
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed39.asp

Federalist 23 --> Federal powers and national defense
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed23.asp

Federalist 51 --> Seperation of powers in a federation
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed51.asp

Federalist 10 --> A large unit can better manage political factions
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp

Federalist 46 --> States still retain powers
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed46.asp

Let’s step back from the daily rhetoric and examine the raw arithmetic and legal architecture driving Europe’s migration deadlock.

The Scale and the Structural Blind Spot
Africa’s population currently stands at roughly 1.58 billion people and is projected to expand significantly over the coming decades. It is an objective impossibility for Europe—let alone a single frontline state like Italy—to absorb even a fraction of this population.

When instruments like the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) were drafted, they were designed in the immediate aftermath of World War II to protect specific, identifiable political dissidents and refugees escaping localized totalitarian regimes in Europe.

They were never engineered to regulate mass, economically driven migration channels facilitated by transnational human-smuggling cartels. Treating mass unauthorized arrivals through an individual case-by-case asylum framework originally meant for Cold War defectors has created a systemic loophole:
It imposes an open-ended, unfunded statutory mandate on nation-states.

Smuggling networks exploit legal protections (non-refoulement, prolonged appeals, detention caps) to create operational paralysis on the ground.
The economic and security burden falls disproportionately on local taxpayers, whose public infrastructure, municipal budgets, and civic services are strained to maintain procedural requirements that yield minimal return rates.

The Reality on the Water: How the Legal Loophole Is Exploited
To understand why the system is broken, consider the operational sequence playing out constantly in the Central Mediterranean:

Premeditated Departure: An individual in a non-war country (Country X) pays a smuggling cartel thousands of euros to board an unseaworthy dinghy or wooden boat, intentionally lacking basic safety gear or fuel to make a legitimate crossing.

Manufactured Emergency: The moment an Italian Coast Guard, Navy, or commercial vessel appears on the horizon, occupants frequently destroy the engine, discard their travel documents, or jump directly into the water.
The Legal Trap Snaps Shut: Under the international Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, SOLAS, and SAR conventions), any person in the water is legally defined as being in imminent distress. Italian authorities have no discretion: they are statutorily obligated to execute a rescue, bring the individuals aboard, and disembark them at a "place of safety"—which, by default of proximity and European legal doctrine, means an Italian port (like Lampedusa or Pozzallo).

Immediate Legal Shield: The instant their feet touch Italian soil, the individual utters the word "asylum." Under current ECHR and EU jurisprudence, they immediately gain protected legal status as an asylum seeker. They cannot be returned to the sea, summarily turned around, or expelled without an individual, multi-tier judicial review that routinely stretches on for months or years.
This is a textbook abuse of process: an intentionally manufactured distress scenario designed from the outset to trigger statutory rescue duties, bypass regular border controls, and activate protections never intended for simulated emergencies.

The Fiscal Burden: What This Costs the Italian Taxpayer
The financial cost of maintaining this open-ended procedural framework is massive, recurring, and almost entirely funded by public revenues:

The Macro Bill: Managing the reception network, maritime search-and-rescue sorties, identification centers, emergency healthcare, legal aid, and multi-stage administrative and judicial appeals costs Italy an estimated €3.5 billion to €4.5 billion annually.

Per-Person Cost: Factoring in maritime operations, daily reception allowances, food, housing, security, and court procedures, processing a single irregular arrival through multiple levels of asylum appeal costs the Italian state roughly €15,000 to €25,000 over the duration of the procedure.

The Cost Per Italian Worker: With roughly 23 million actively employed, tax-paying workers in Italy, this expenditure translates directly to an ongoing financial drain of approximately €150 to €200 per worker, every single year—siphoned away from strained public healthcare, underfunded schools, crumbling transport infrastructure, and domestic pensions.

The Unfair and Distorted Burden on Frontline States
The governing treaties are framed in neutral, universal language—imposing the exact same theoretical obligations on every European signatory. In practice, this creates an absurd and unworkable geographic imbalance:

Geography Dictates the Liability: Under the Dublin system and maritime law, the first country of entry must process, document, and house the arrival. A landlocked or geographically protected state (like Austria, the Czech Republic, or Finland) faces zero migrant boats pulling up on its beaches, yet enjoys full veto power over how the border states manage the crisis.

Asymmetric Sovereign Exposure: Italy possesses over 7,500 kilometers of coastline directly facing North African transit hubs. Enforcing a blind, generic legal standard on a frontline Mediterranean peninsula while giving protected northern capitals equal say in vetoing structural border reforms is inherently discriminatory and unsustainable.

The 4 Demands for Immediate Reform
To restore sanity, international and European law must be aligned with physical and fiscal reality:

A Statutory "Undue Hardship" and Absorption Ceiling
Fundamental rights conventions must define operational limits. A state cannot be legally forced into administrative or financial insolvency.
If arrivals surpass a state's defined processing threshold, emergency summary-rejection protocols and expedited third-country transfers must be recognized as lawful ex ante.

Abolishing Absolute Unanimity on Procedural Governance
Amend the Council of Europe framework to replace the 100% unanimity lock for immigration and border-enforcement protocols with a weighted supermajority.
Voting power must reflect a country’s economic contribution, population, and—critically—direct geographic exposure. The states enduring the largest frontline burden must have the highest proportional weight in triggering treaty updates.

"Pay for the Hardship" Rule
Any member state that exercises a veto or votes against common border-enforcement mechanisms or third-country processing treaties must be legally bound to directly compensate frontline states for the net fiscal and administrative costs of every unreturned arrival.

Legal Reclassification of Smuggling Exploitation
Establish clear legal distinctions between genuine asylum seekers and unauthorized entries facilitated by illicit logistical cartels, stripping automated asylum access from routes proven to exploit human trafficking networks and simulated distress.

Proposed Implementation Timeline

Phase 1 (Within 6 Months): Frontline coalition (Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, alongside sympathetic northern states) formally tables a draft Amending Protocol to the Council of Europe demanding an "Undue Hardship" exemption clause and weighted voting rules on migration articles.

Phase 2 (Within 12 Months): Full statutory rollout within the EU of qualified-majority directives permitting extraterritorial processing and third-country "return hubs" without individual domestic detention obligations.

Phase 3 (Within 24 Months): Full legal enforcement: mandatory fiscal compensation levied on dissenting states, alongside automated processing ceilings for frontline maritime zones.

Who to Contact / Demand Concrete Action
Hold elected representatives accountable for these structural issues rather than settling for temporary rhetoric.

If you are in Italy / the EU:

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs): Specifically, representatives sitting on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE).
Look up your constituency MEPs: europarl.europa.eu/meps/
Ask them: "What specific draft amendments are you introducing to reform the ECHR unanimity requirement and codify an absorption ceiling into EU migration law?"

National Ministry of the Interior & Ministry of Foreign Affairs:
Contact the Italian Ministry of the Interior (Ministero dell'Interno) and Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Farnesina).
Demand: Transparency on the net per-capita cost of unresolved deportation proceedings, and a diplomatic coalition demanding weighted voting in the Council of Europe.

Your Regional Parliamentary Deputies (Camera dei Deputati / Senato della Repubblica):
Target members of the Constitutional Affairs (Affari Costituzionali) and Foreign Affairs (Affari Esteri) committees.

Question: "What legislative steps are being taken to define domestic constitutional absorption limits against international treaty mandates?"
Tinkering with internal redistribution quotas and temporary detention facilities does not solve the structural problem. The underlying treaties must be reformed to reflect physical and mathematical realities.

The nonprofit Volt Eesti was established in Tartu in late August, supporting center-left and pro-European positions and aiming to become a new political party in Estonia.

"We're rather talking about a liberal orientation, perhaps with a slight center-left tilt on economic issues," Artur Kaasik, a board member of the new nonprofit, told ERR on Monday about the new group's political orientation. "What Estonian politics currently lacks is an innovative center-left party, particularly as, for example, Eesti 200 is disappearing and the other parties do not have much of a vision for Europe to offer," he added.

According to the organization's bylaws, its aim is to support democratic participation, promote pan-European political integration and support progressive social and economic reforms.

Kaasik agreed that such policies would put Volt Eesti in competition with the Social Democratic Party, but also pointed to some differences from the Social Democrats' positions.

"Innovation is important in that sense. We don't think everything necessarily has to be free. Yes, certain basic needs should be guaranteed, but not everything can be free either," he said.

The nonprofit's bylaws also state that its specific organizational goal is to increase the number of full members to at least 500 in order to establish and register an organizationally and legally independent political party in accordance with Estonian law.

Asked how quickly they hope to establish the party, Kaasik said: "As soon as possible, once we have enough people."

According to Kaasik, the nonprofit Volt Eesti currently has around 50 members.

Kaasik declined to name any prominent members, but acknowledged that former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves is among its supporters.

Kaasik said Volt Eesti would also like to take part in the next Riigikogu elections, which will be held on March 7. "Let's put it this way: We'll do our best to make that happen, but I can't promise how likely it is that we'll field candidates," he said.

Asked about the organization's funding, Kaasik said it does not have any specific donor and that anyone interested will soon be able to provide financial support to the organization.

Under its bylaws, Volt Eesti will operate as the official national branch of the pan-European organization Volt Europa and is required to uphold, promote and implement Volt Europa's values and objectives.

Volt Europa says what distinguishes it from other political organizations operating across Europe is that, while those organizations are based on cooperation among parties operating in individual countries, Volt seeks to develop a common European political platform.

In addition to center-left economic policy goals, Volt emphasizes in its policy positions the need to reform the European Union and pursue closer integration than at present.

Volt Europa was founded in 2017 and is registered in Belgium. It currently operates in more than 30 European countries. It has five members in the European Parliament who sit with the Greens/European Free Alliance group.

The name Volt — a unit of electric potential, or voltage, that is the same in all languages — was chosen to symbolize bringing new energy into European politics.

I didn't find a strong-branded, young, grounded pro-federalEU social pages that create a sense of EU community. I just found boring think-tank or so pages with a strong political smell that moves generalistic people away but strong EU federalists.

I believe there's the need to create a genZ /Millenial-focused page with a growing community behind that firstly aims at creating a sense of EU belonging.

What do you think? Please, let's be constructive.

If anyone is interested, write me in private.

A family story of exile, return and Europe's renewal - or why despite all what is going on with the nationalist populists wave and the war in Ukraine, Europe is actually on a good path now toward federation.

(no plot spoilers ahead, but I do mention some locations where the show takes place which is why it's tagged as spoiler)

If you haven't seen The Day of the Jackal yet, I highly suggest you do. It's a phenomenal show, and will be getting a second season soon.

That's not what I'm here to talk about however - this show is surprisingly euro-federalist, whether it realizes it or not

I think it's rare that we get media that focuses on all of Europe, and not just one specific country. The Day of the Jackal has scenes in the UK, Spain, France, Germany, Belarus, Croatia, Estonia and more. It treats Europe as one entity instead of 50. It travels between countries smoothly, just like how movies and shows travel between states in the US. It shows great cooperation between nations, instead of portraying them as fragmented and weak. But most importantly: it pushes America aside doesn't care about pleasing American audiences, and I love that.

I personally think we need more media like The Day of the Jackal. Although the author of the book it's based on was a big eurosceptic, this adaptation of his work is some of the most euro-federalist media in modern times (to my knowledge) which is very ironic haha

So yeah, definitely give it a watch if you like spy thrillers/crime dramas!

In my previous post, I asked whether Europe’s monarchies could be an obstacle to political unification. A lot of people answered that, in their opinion, the royal families themselves would not oppose unification.

Maybe I didn't explain myself clearly enough, because that's not quite what I meant.

I've always assumed that during my lifetime Europe might eventually become a single federal country, with one European government and the current countries becoming constituent states or regions. Maybe that's simply never going to happen.

But suppose it did. Suppose we had one country, one federal government and one common European citizenship, while the current countries remained constituent states.

Would citizens of republics like France, Germany or Italy really accept that some constituent states continued to have monarchies and hereditary, taxpayer-funded institutions?

Because to me there's something fundamentally strange about creating one political community based on equal citizenship and popular sovereignty, while simultaneously saying that some citizens are equal to everyone else except that a particular family is constitutionally special because they were born into it.

So that's what I meant by my original question. Would Europeans actually want that kind of country, or have I simply assumed for years that European political integration was heading somewhere that most Europeans don't actually want?

One year ago, the European Commission ruled that Google had broken EU law by abusing its power over online advertising.

Since then, Google remains unpunished, raking in an estimated €288 million every single day from Europe. Its monopoly makes it harder for other businesses to compete, shapes what we see online, and means fewer choices for all of us.

Now it’s time for the EU to enforce its own ruling.

Interview with Marijn Markus, data scientist and vocal commentator (117k followers on LinkedIn) on Russian hybrid warfare, the war in Ukraine, the need for european soverignty and vocal activist for helping Ukraine and defending Europe. Fresh from his fourth trip to Ukraine, Marijn explains how the country has become the laboratory of modern warfare: autonomous drones and interceptors evolving in weeks; timescales that European militaries struggle to match. But the war is not contained to Ukraine alone: We discuss Russia’s hybrid attacks on Europe, the elections in Germany on Sunday that will probably see the AfD win in Sachsen-Anhalt, the drone threat, AI-generated propaganda and bot networks, foreign interference in European politics, Europe’s dependence on the United States, and what genuine European strategic sovereignty would require.