Should the E.U. appoint and
send an envoy to Russia in spite of the fact that E.U. and state officials are
not of one mind on a strategy to pressure Russia’s head, Putin, to the
negotiating table to compromise? The power of the state governments at the federal
level complicates efforts by Commission officials to present Putin with a
specific list of sanctions because the governors are not on the same page even
after Viktor Orbán’s electoral defeat in April, 2026. Ironically, desperately
needed reforms to the E.U.’s federal system itself have been as politically
difficult even to propose as has getting Putin to the negotiating table.
Focusing on the latter while ignoring the former is a self-inflicted wound that
has weakened the Europeans on the world stage. Incidentally, another
self-inflicted state of denial involves assuming that such drastic cultural
differences exist between two small E.U. states, such as Denmark and the
Netherlands, while assuming that all of the U.S. states across a continent
and beyond are basically the same, culturally. Recently, a European, who is
actually a U.S. citizen, said as much to me! Denial is the main defense
mechanism in the E.U. Even painstaking effort to render this political
brain-sickness transparent is no match for the underlying ideological fervor
that has so severely enervated the European Union from becoming a more perfect
union.
Pointing to the intractable
problem within the E.U. in formulating foreign policy, the E.U.’s foreign
minister, Kaja Kallas, said in 2026, “Before we talk to the Russians, we should
agree and talk amongst ourselves what we want to talk to the Russians about.”[1]
She was undoubtedly referring to the direct involvement of state officials at
the federal level in the Council of Ministers; agreement between relevant
federal officials was not sufficient. In the U.S., the state governments’ official
direct involvement at the federal level has been through the U.S. Senate,
which, like the European Council and the Council of Ministers, represents states.
Whereas the U.S. Senate’s filibuster (60 out of 100 vote threshold) is related
back to the ongoing enumerated and residual governmental
sovereignty of the U.S. states, the semi-sovereign E.U. states, which delegated
significant governmental sovereignty to the E.U., have enjoyed veto power on federal
foreign (and defense) policy—effectively choking off E.U. foreign (and defense)
policy. It is for precisely this reason that in 2026, E.U. President von der
Leyen and even the governor of one of the large states, (the E.U. state of
Germany) publicly advocated applying qualified-majority voting to every proposed
policy, E.U. law, and regulation/directive in the European Council and the
Council of Ministers. This eminently reasonable constitutional (or Basic Law)
reform of the E.U.’s federal system had to contend with the formidable resistance
of the Euroskeptic ideology that the E.U. states were still somehow sovereign.
Backing up the denial was the ideological tendency to exaggerate cultural
differences between small E.U. states, such as the Netherlands and Denmark,
while assuming that the U.S. states across a continent and beyond are
culturally similar! Denial on top of denial to support the category mistake of
comparing even a small E.U. state with the U.S. as a whole (while rejecting comparisons
such as those between California and the E.U. and even between the two empire-scale
unions!). The bad odor of denialism was, at least as of 2026, so ubiquitous in the
E.U. that the smell may well have been likened instead to that of a freshly blooming
flower. Bad air!
The ideological grip on the state-veto
in the European Council and the Council of Ministers, held firmly by the states’
governors even though they were exploiting institutional and personal (i.e.,
power) conflicts of interest, was immune to the plea even of Ukraine’s
president Zelensky, who said on May 17, 2026, “It is important for [the E.U.]
to have a strong voice and presence in this process [regarding Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine], and it is worth determining who will represent Europe
specifically.”[2] The
state veto in the councils inhibited the E.U. from speaking with one voice and
even being able to sit at the negotiating table with Putin. Regarding whomever
might represent the E.U., one implication is that the envoy could have
sufficient discretion rather than be limited to the demands of one governor out
of 27 who is skeptical. Indeed, the E.U.’s foreign minister, Kaja Kallas,
admitted at the time that the relevant officials of the states had “vastly
disparate views” on “concessions and conditions” for Russia.[3]
Given this state of affairs at the state level, holding onto the principle of
unanimity in the councils on foreign policy was quite foolish indeed.
Kallas also said that the E.U. “should not ‘humiliate’ itself by seeking direct talks” with Putin.[4] The humiliation feared was that of the E.U. not having sufficient power to avoid giving in at the very start of negotiations. To be sure, Putin is a touch negotiator, but the seeds of the E.U.’s weakness are within rather than bestowed by the Russian. To be sure, both Putin and Trump could smell political weakness even from a great distance. In 2025, for example, E.U. officials “found, through press reports, a 28-point plan drafted by US and Russian officials that included issues, such as sanctions and assets, that fell under [the E.U.’s] jurisdiction.”[5] Even though the Europeans could blame the Americans and the Russians, a more mature mentality would honestly confront the weakness in the E.U.’s federal system, by which I obviously have in mind the vetoes reserved to the states at the federal level. This is not to say that expunging the veto from E.U. federalism would be sufficient to redress the weakness in E.U. foreign policy.
As governor of the E.U. state of Hungary, Viktor Orbán belied the Von der Leyen
administration by going to visit Putin in Moscow. Direct involvement in foreign
policy at the federal level must not permit such a betrayal by the governor of
a state, for a house divided cannot stand. This is true, by the way, for
couples wherein values clash and neither (or even one) side will compromise; tragically,
such clashes blow up even love as if the two people had never even met. If the
Europeans can figure out how to retain some direct involvement of the state
governments in foreign policy without the veto and direct state involvement with
foreign officials if prohibited by the Commission, then the Americans might
want to consider how the state governments could have more direct involvement,
especially since U.S. senators ceased to be appointed by the state governments,
for being elected by the citizens of a state does not mean that the state government
is represented, and does not necessarily give a senator a political incentive
to represent the state government’s interests if the people thereof
would prefer federal preemption. Of course, the European ideological bias would
preclude such a comparison, and thus any such benefit obtained by studying the
other union.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
