Chaos in Massive Illegal Crossings into the E.U.: The Case of Ceuta

Even though the default absolutist notion of national sovereignty has consistently undercut global efforts to combat climate change and rid the world of nuclear weapons and even war itself, to disregard territorial sovereignty altogether is also problematic. Interestingly, both extremes treat international relations as a Hobbesian state of nature, and disregarding national sovereignty even extends the state of nature to within a country such that even national government is presumed not to exist. Illegal immigration is a case in point. When sixty thousand North Africans illegally entered Ceuta in the E.U. on July 30, 2026, the utter disrespect for the rule of law as well as the E.U.’s territorial integrity and legitimacy was palpable.

The full essay is at "Chaos in Massive Illegal Crossings into the E.U."

The European Civil Protection Pool: Insufficient for the E.U.'s Civil Protection Mechanism

The European Civil Protection Pool (ECPP) was established in 2013 to provide emergency response personnel and equipment to combat natural and man-made disasters in Europe. The Pool is the central component of the E.U. Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM). However, the ECPP depends on voluntary contributions from the state governments and even extends beyond the E.U. to include ten European sovereign states. The reliance on voluntary contributions, as well as the distended coverage beyond the E.U. have a weakening impact on the ability of the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive branch, to respond to raging forest fires, as were out of control in several southern states during the summer of 2026. Heat-wave after heat-wave plus decades of those states allowing deadwood to accumulate in the forests (the same error had also exacerbated the massive 1988 fire in Yellowstone and Grand Teton parks in Wyoming) provided a “perfect storm” for raging fires by July. Even the Commission’s emphasis on prevention had not been enough, given the reliance on the states, literally to have enough brush and dead trees culled prior to the hot summer. I contend that the Commission having to rely on the states (and even ten other countries!) to contribute personnel and equipment in the ECPP program, which is in line with the Commission’s typical coordinative approach, is out of step with the E.U.’s actual federal system of dual sovereignty because a mere coordinating role fits what Althusius, in his 1603 text, Political Digest, calls non-plena foedus (non-full federalism: all governmental sovereignty is at the state level).

The full essay is at "The European Civil Protection Pool."

E.U. Federalism: On SIS Counterterrorism

The FBI was created in 1908, more than a century after the U.S. federal system of dual sovereignty had gone into effect in 1989; before then, the U.S. had been a military alliance and then a confederation of sovereign countries (under the Articles of Confederation). An ahistorical American mindset tends to overlook the international beginnings of that political union, and especially that the federal system designed in the Convention in 1787 incorporated both national and international elements into the federal level. This history bears not only on the American federal system, but also in how it can be accurately compared with the E.U.’s system, which also divided governmental sovereignty between the federal and state levels, and whose federal level also contains national and international elements, institutionally. Unfortunately for the E.U., the destructive technology available in the twenty-first century, as in advanced weaponry for mass destruction, has put pressure on E.U. officials to federalize intelligence-capabilities that could otherwise take over a century, as in the case of the U.S., to be federalized from the state level. Such pressure could exacerbate fears that the E.U. might be headed like a fast train to becoming a central state, consolidated at the expense of even its distinctly federal elements—for the U.S. had arguably consolidated too much, given its empire-scale, since at least the end of World War II.

The full essay is at "E.U. Federalism."

Trade or Foreign Policy: The E.U. on Illegal Israeli Settlements

During the summer of 2026, the E.U. found itself at one point trying to make the unnecessarily arduous and utterly artificial distinction between trade and foreign policy as if they were mutually exclusive. This task was foisted on the Council of Ministers due to the domain-specific application of the state veto, which is to say, the requirement of unanimity. The sheer artificiality was outdone only by the absurdity of any of 27 states still being able to veto proposed federal law and policy in some but not all policy domains, and thus hamstring the E.U. even when the good of the whole, supported by the vast majority of states and E.U. citizens, supported action on the federal level. The global context at the time with respect to international relations belied a stark separation of trade from foreign policy.

The full essay is at "Trade or Foreign Policy."

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.

The full essay is at "Italy Thwarts E.U. Lawmakers Inspecting an Off-Shore Migrant Centre."

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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.

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.

The full essay is at "The European Parliament."

Europe: Over- and Under-Represented in the G7

I contend that in having both federal and state-level officials attending the G7 international meetings, Europe is over-represented even as the E.U. itself is sidelined. At least this was the case at the meeting in June, 2026 in the E.U. state of France. The staying power of the seven countries comprising the Group could be considered as antiquated, given the relevance and importance of the E.U. in international relations. The very intractability of institutional arrangements (i.e., structures) even in the face of a changing political environment can thus be viewed as problematic. By implication, the exclusion of the E.U. from the United Nations international organization can be viewed as effectively relegating the UN as a structurally-frozen “has been” by the 2020s.

The full essay is at "Europe."

The E.U.: A Political Union

Strong’s The Antifederalist is a series of essays critical of the American federal system in which governmental sovereignty is “dual,” meaning that both the Union and the member-states have at least some such sovereignty that the other cannot abolish or override. Had more credence been paid to the arguments in that text, perhaps the state governments would have more power at the federal level to protect their retained sovereignty from federal encroachment. The drafting of the E.U. paid more heed to those arguments in terms of safeguarding state sovereignty by considerable direct involvement of state officials at the federal level. Even so, Euroskeptics have warned of a centralized state in the process, and the U.S. has furnished them with an actual instance of a nearly consolidated empire-scale federal system. The warnings may thus be valid even with the additional safeguards that the E.U. has but the U.S. lacks, at least as of 2026, but claims that the E.U. does not have a federal system and is not a political union of states ring hollow as they are utterly false. So too, but the way, is the mislabeling of the E.U. as a bloc. The E.U.’s parliament alone knocks out all three of these ideological claims.

The full essay is at "The E.U.: A Political Union."

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

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

The full essay is at "Hungary Blocks €90 billion E.U. Loan for Ukraine."

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

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

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

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

On the E.U.’s Complex Federal System

Because the “the EU is built on consensus at 27” states,[1] by 2026 it had become painfully obvious to Europe’s elite that its Union had come to harbor a great disadvantage in terms of united or collective action because political consensus can be elusive even at 27 states, each of which could result to a veto on reforms at the federal level, with enlargement of the Union from 27 on the horizon. Something had to be done, given the intransigence of the principle of unanimity in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Direct access of the state governments at the federal level could stave off too much federal encroachment on the prerogatives of the state governments, but the costs associated with this safeguard were becoming too high. Therefore, in February, 2026, E.U. state and federal officials met to give added weight to something called “two-track Europe.” In actuality, there were already more than two tracks in the European Union. Although complex, the means of releasing the Union from the high bar needed to achieve unanimity or even consensus among the several states could well save the Union from the paralysis of division. The outdated premise that united action should only be allowed when there is no division had become too utopian for federal Europe. Multiple-speed Europe in the E.U. is actually more in line with the E.U.’s federal system already being genuine.

The full essay is at "On the E.U.'s Complex Federal System."

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “Leaders Embrace Two-Speed Europe to Break Impasse as Macron Sets June Deadline for Economic Reset,” Euronews.com, February 12, 2026.

Mixing Trade and Defense Policy: The E.U.-U.S. Bilateral Relationship

Trade and war have historically been related, as, for example, money from recurring surplus balances of trade—an alternative to debt—has facilitated military build-ups prior to going to war in the Europe. In threatening to take Greenland by military force if the E.U. state of Denmark continued to refuse to sell the island and then issuing 10% tariffs against Denmark and other E.U. states, as well as two sovereign European states for having sent troops to defend Greenland in case the U.S. were to invade, President Trump closely wielded trade and military policy. The E.U.’s response was unbalanced, being oriented only to the trade element of the E.U.-U.S. bilateral relationship, due to weaknesses in the E.U.’s federal system.

The full essay is at "Mixing Trade and Defense Policy."

Poised to Take on the U.S. Military: All Five Danish Soldiers in Greenland

Even though Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine was prompting E.U. officials to bolster the union’s defenses in 2025, U.S. President Trump’s statements early in 2026 in favor of the U.S. buying or invading Greenland, an “autonomous” part of the E.U. state of Denmark, triggered defensive rhetoric in that state’s government. I contend that the rhetoric was largely, though not completely, hyperbolic, and that more substantial statements could have come from the E.U.’s foreign minister because the E.U. is, as an empire-scale political union of states, equivalent to the U.S.[1] That the E.U. could in principle take on the U.S. is enough to view the Danish state’s rhetoric as hyperbolic, and thus as not credible enough to dissuade an American invasion of Greenland.

The full essay is at "Poised to Take on the U.S. Military."

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1. Skip Worden, Essays on Two Federal Empires: Comparing the E.U. and U.S. (2015)

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.

The full essay is at "Bulgaria." 

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

On the E.U.’s “Pragmatic” Federalism

It is ironic that even though European political theorists, including Immanuel Kant, Johannes Althusius, and Kenneth Wheare, made substantial contributions on the topic of federalism, even political leaders in the E.U. as late as 2025 were stumbling over the basics, getting the very concept wrong. Unfortunately, that has caused journalists to trip and fall too, leaving E.U. citizens grappling over the apparent problem of being citizens both of their state and the E.U. even though, according to former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi spoke in 2025 in favor of “’pragmatic federalism’ as the political conditions for a true, federal union do not exist in the E.U. at the moment.”[1] The claims that “pragmatic federalism” is somehow not indicative of “true” federalism, and, moreover, that somehow the E.U. has states that are semi-sovereign (as the E.U. itself has exclusive competences) and yet federalism does not apply are patently absurd. Draghi was confusing the politics of the moment, in which the anti-federalist, Euroskeptic ideology was still too powerful for more governmental sovereignty to be moved to the federal level from the states, with whether the E.U. had a federal system already. In other words, “political conditions” are distinct from whether the E.U. has a federal system of public governance. Draghi’s assertion is all the more astounding not only because of his governmental experience at the federal level, but also because the dual-sovereignty (of the states and the Union) means that the E.U. fits within the category of modern federalism rather than confederalism (using Wheare’s terminology). Europeans have quite understandably been confused in trying to classify the E.U. away from the pull of the anti-federalist ideology in Europe.

The full essay is at "On the E.U.'s 'Pragmatic' Federalism."

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1. Sandor Zsiros, “The EU Wants to End the Era of National Vetoes—But It’s Complicated,” Euronews.com, 23 December, 2025.

Immobilizing E.U. Holdings of Russian Assets

By invoking Article 122 of the E.U.’s basic law, a clause that had been used most significantly during the Coronavirus pandemic and in the 2022 energy crisis, the E.U. in December, 2025 finally circumvented the twice-threatened veto by the state of Hungary and indefinitely froze €210 billion of assets of the Russian Central Bank that had been within the E.U.’s territory since Russia began its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine nearly four years earlier. I contend that the European Court of Justice, the E.U.’s supreme court, could apply a rational basis in a judicial review of the triggering of the emergency-conditioned article, especially because the Commission invoked the article in order to obviate Hungary’s threatened veto. Because every E.U. state except for Belgium and Hungary were for freezing the assets until Russia such time as Russia ends its militaristic aggression and compensates Ukraine financially for damages the Belgian and Hungarian state governments were violating the informal norm of consensus in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Like the U.S. Senate, the European Council, which also represents the states, is like a club of sorts. The problem facing the Commission is that violating a norm is not a legal basis for obviating a threatened state-veto by invoking an emergency clause of the E.U.’s basic law, especially if no emergency actually exists after nearly four years of the invasion. Even though I am personally in favor of the E.U. obviating Hungary’s serial obstructionism that may be, at least in part, retaliation against President Von der Leyen’s Commission for having penalized the Hungarian government financially for having violated E.U. law, legal reasoning should not succumb to the gravity of the “black hole” of personal opinion.  There may be nothing so much like a god as a general on a battlefield, with power over life and death, but neither the European Commission nor myself is a general. In short, the Commission’s legal justification in invoking Article 122 is tenuous at best, even though countering Hungary’s Viktor Orbán’s abuse of his state’s veto-power in the European Council and the Council of Ministers was needed for the E.U. to be able to function within its enumerated competencies (i.e., powers).

The full essay is at "Immobilizing E.U. Holdings of Russian Assets."

The E.U.: A Political Union

As if having elected representatives and political parties in the European Parliament were not enough evidence that the E.U. has been a political union all along, the distinctly political role of the E.U. with regard to Ukraine amid the Russian invasion renders the E.U. political not merely institutionally in regard to representative democracy, which is a political rather than an economic system. Also, that the European Commission has exclusive competency on trade does not eclipse the union’s distinctly political activity. That the E.U. agreed to move forward informally with Ukraine’s accession request even though the state of Hungary was formally vetoing the accession demonstrates a political function or role of the European Union.

The full essay is at "The E.U."

Russia’s Bottom-Line on Ukraine

As American, Ukrainian, and Russian negotiating delegations were flying around the world in early December, 2025 to conduct various negotiating sessions, all the while without the presidents of Russia and Ukraine meeting, it was difficult for bystanders to keep an eye on the proverbial ball as it was being kicked around by offers and counter-offers, and complicated by the high-profiled presence of the businessman, Jared Kushner, who happened to be married to one of U.S. President Trump’s daughters. Kushner was also highly visible in the negotiations on Gaza, which almost certainly included real-estate development. To be sure, commercial and investment deals can easily remain subterranean while the public discourse stays on the political relations between nations, and even just the latter may lack transparency. Democratic accountability in democratic republics as concerning the conduct and results of foreign policy can be difficult. Especially difficult to gauge was the hand being closely held by Russia’s President Putin. I contend that his willingness to negotiate was consistently overestimated by the West and Ukraine.

The full essay is at "Russia's Bottom-Line on Ukraine." 

A Reparations Loan or Common Debt: Undercut by State Rights

“State rights” was a common refrain by the eleven U.S. member states who sought to exit in 1861; the underlying fear was that the exclusive competencies, or enumerated powers, of the U.S., combined with the numerous accessions of new states, were already compromising the power of the eleven states to protect their economies from “encroachment.” In 1858, for instance, a tariff disadvantageous to those economies had been passed in spite of the “Southern” objections in the U.S. Senate. Had each member state had a veto, rather than just the ability to filibuster, the eleven states would have been able to protect the viability of their respective economies from encroachment by the Union. To be sure, the state rights claim that the U.S. was still just a bloc, as had been the case from 1781-1789 under the Articles of Confederation, was sheer denial, for the U.S. Constitution instituted a new kind of federalism—partly national, partly international—based on dual sovereignty, wherein both the member states and the Union have a portion of governmental sovereignty. It is this form of federalism, “modern federalism,” that the Europeans adopted in creating the European Union because the E.U. has exclusive competencies. But whereas the shift made by the Americans in the eighteenth century left the state-veto behind at the Union level, the Europeans retained the veto, which at the very least works against the effective operation of modern federalism. The arduous and much delayed task on a reparations loan for Ukraine in spite of the self-interested objection—and thus promised veto—of one state is a case in point. Even the alternative of the E.U. issuing debt faced state-level opposition, as was the case in the U.S. in the 1790s, but in that case, the self-interested states that were relatively clear of debt could not stop the issuance because none of those states could wield a veto at the federal level. This is important because back then, the American states were still widely viewed as countries by their respective inhabitants. “I must fight for my country,” General Lee told Lincoln in 1861, referring to Virginia. A refresher on American history could help Europeans cross the Rubicon to a more internally consistent modern federalism. Whether Euroskepticism or States’ Rights, the ideology, as etched into the E.U.’s Basic Law, is responsible for Van der Leyen’s headaches in getting the E.U. to put Ukraine in a position of strength against the Russian invaders.

The full essay is at "A Reparations Loan or Common Debt."

E.U. Citizens on the Union’s Enlargement

Having recently been presented with an E.U. citizen denying the E.U. has citizens even as he admitted that he could vote for a candidate to represent him in the European Parliament, I had my faith in human rationality restored the following day in reading of a poll of E.U. citizens on whether additional states should be added to the Union; ideology, even of the tribal sort, need not distort rationality beyond recognition. Even in the reporting of such a poll, however, the Euroskeptic, or states’ rights, ideology left its imprint. Even such an auxiliary presence is a sign of the headwind that has been facing the E.U. since its founding.

The full essay is at "E.U. Citizens."