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.
The full essay is at "Belgium Eclipses the E.U."
