Building a new federal political system: reassessing recent developments in the Eurozone
Abstract:
This contribution aims to highlight how the Eurozone is progressively moving towards a new
model of governance which would imply new forms of political legitimacy in the next years.
Many think that federalism should not be applicable to the European Union, since the EU is
not a state and therefore it is not possible to apply the category of federalism to EU
integration. This contribution shows how this statement is based on conceptual
misinterpretations.
Hence the paper will tackle three interrelated issues: Firstly, it will look at the European Union
as a federal political model, and highlight how comparative federalism helps us in
understanding the EU integration process. Second, the core of the paper will focus more
specifically on the recent developments in the Eurozone in the wake of the financial crisis and
the sovereign debt crisis and highlight how measures taken by the EU and Eurozone countries
have contributed to a deepening of the federal character of the EU as a whole, but specifically
of the Eurozone as a core. The final part will highlight where the most recent developments
have the EU led to, what other issues will need to be address, and how federalism might help
us in understanding this process.
Introduction:
Investigating the European Union through the lenses of federal theories represented an
academic goal for two of the main scholars in federalism in the 20th century: John Pinder
(1998) and Michael Burgess (1999). In the light of the crisis of the sovereign European debts,
which blighted the Eurozone since 2009, the Eurozone authorities have faced many issues
and had to undertake many steps to stop its own fragmentation and win back markets’ trust.
These changes represented not only very small, early and limited steps toward fiscal union,
but also deepened the division between Eurozone and non-Eurozone countries and
highlighted the asymmetries in obligations and rights. The distance between Eurozone and
non-Eurozone country has grown so forth that recently many senior MEPs (Brok, Bresso,
Verhofstadt, Duff) had presented different proposals for formalising these separate
dynamics. The European Union is already a system of multiple tiers of integration which,
according to the federal theory, represent different developments of shared and pooled
sovereignty, of which its least developed stage is intergovernmentalism and federalism is its
most developed tier.
In order to develop a deep understanding of this development according to the categories of
federalism it is necessary introducing the theoretical framework for a better understanding
of this analysis.
Different degrees of federality in the European Union:
In its broader sense the European Union represents a federality (Sigdwick, 1903) i.e. a system
of combined polities opposite to unitary states. Federality is a broad and undefined term
which combines both different formulas and of different visions of federal systems. This term
encompassed all the different forms of federal political systems, according to Watts definition
(2008: 10), since Sigdwick did not make differences between federations and confederations,
but just between state whose polity was made of a single constituent unit and those other
states whose polity was made of different constituent ones. Therefore, federality represents
a flexible term including normative principles, forms of states and ideologies. Watts
individuated some different forms of federal political systems. For instance, those which are
relevant for the study of the European Union are international organisations, confederations
and federations, accordingly to their different degree of federality and their different
ideological background and political goals. These are three different steps in the development
of federal system in which International Organizations represent the weakest and least
developed stage of federal political system, while federations represent the most mature,
developed and complete stage. Confederations are the middle step.
Internationalism and European intergovernmentalism
Internationalism (commonly referred to as liberal internationalism) and federalism find their
common roots respectively in the Grotian theory of International Relations and in the Kantian
theory of cosmopolitanism.
Scholars like Martin Wight (1991) and Headley Bull (1977) used to describe the study of
International Relations as being based on three traditions: the Machiavellian/Hobbesian, the
Grotian and the Kantian tradition. While the first and the third one are, respectively, the
ground field for realist and federalist interpretations of international theory, Grotius is the
founder of the liberal internationalist theory and the current tradition of International Law.
All these three traditions developed their own interpretation on the idea of shared
sovereignty, as of cooperation among states. While realists used to dismiss the cooperation
among international states for being weak and subjected exclusively to the interest of the
states and federalists advocate the creation of a federal system, Internationalists rejected the
hypothesis of both the former, i.e. the idea that international relations are a chaotic and
dangerous anarchy, in which, according to the realists, the fittest survives and wins and
therefore, according to the federalists, requires to be limited and managed by supranational
organizations. The same concept is applicable to the theory of pooled sovereignty, while
Grotian and Kantian schools developed their own understanding on pooled sovereignty, the
Hobbesian just dismissed it.
In The Law of War and Peace Grotius gave a meaningful contribution in the development of
internationalism and eventually played a meaningful influence in Kant’s Perpetual Peace.
Grotius advocated the existence of a spontaneous natural law in international relations,
which flourishes inside a society of states (Bull, 1977) sharing some common moral and
cultural elements. The society Grotius described was not an eternal battlefield where state
fight each other constantly, but the place where its member adopt and develop common
habits. Wight (1991) used to describe Grotian tradition as the one based on rationality and
pragmatism, in opposition to the pessimist Hobbesian/Machiavellian interpretation and the
optimistic and revolutionary Kantian one. Therefore, the raison d’état is not an absolute and
limitless principle, but it has to coexist with the basic value of the international society. The
international system Grotius proposed was a two tier system, in which the external and
internal sovereignty are divided, and while the internal sovereignty is illimitable (Leamon,
1982), the external sovereignty ended where the others sovereignty began. By contrast, Kant
eventually unifies these tiers in his theory. The republican principles pervaded any level of
sovereignty, but similarly to Grotius, Kant asserts that any country should be set free to
achieve its own republican government on its own, and therefore should remain independent
within a federal and cosmopolitan framework. Although Grotius did not exclude a
supranational authority could be desirable (Pound, 1952), Grotius asserts that the states
cannot limit themselves through a supranational authority as individuals do , since they do
not have the same needs individuals have. Consequently, a supranational authority would be
just an entity of mere force (Leamon, 1982), but without any real polity below nor a real
citizenship, and therefore cursed to fail. This element has remained central in the following
developments of internationalism, which favours intergovernmental arrangements over
transfers of sovereignty towards supranational authorities.
In Perpetual Peace (1795), Kant demonstrated how to establish permanent peace on a global
scale. In the definitive articles of Perpetual Peace (pp. 117-142), Kant stated the necessity to
establish a supranational polity modelled on three levels of constitutions: constitutions at
national level governing relations among people within nations, a constitution at
supranational level setting the relations among states, and a constitution embodying the
relations between states and individuals. Kant also stated that every country should be
republican (i.e. non despotic and with a clear division of powers) and that the law of the
nations should be founded on a federation of free states. Kant recognized that states were
central in the world stage and that federation was the most suitable model of polity. Kant
recognized that, according to the general understanding of international law, states by no
means desire to give up their “savage limitless freedom” (1795, p. 136) and yield to the
coercion of public law. They refuse to do what the individual has done. Therefore, since
establishing a world republic is impossible, a federation of free and republican state becomes
the only solution available, to bring an enduring peace. Therefore the federation becomes the
negative substitute of a world republic. In Kant’s proposal, republican and federal ideas are
strictly connected. Kant’s ideas of federation of free republic was not new. Almost a century
earlier in 1683, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz advocated a new form of Res Publica Christiana,
founded on common religious and moral principles and based on the society of Christian
nations. By contrast, the Kantian federation is a secular system and potentially extendable to
the whole humankind, whose ground ideology is republicanism: i.e. a clear division of powers,
and liberal principle of tolerance and mutual respect. Kant’s proposal was much closer to
Abbé Saint-Pierre’s one, which, nonetheless, was limited to the Christian European nations
only.
Although Kant is generally considered as one of the main thinkers and founders of federalism,
he neither provided a comprehensive and clear definition of this federation of free states, nor
a precise definition of its degree of federality. This lack left a great room to different
interpretations on the role of the states and of the federal authorities. Undoubtedly, the
model Kant presented is much more than a simple society of states or an alliance, by being at
the same time a negative substitute of a single state. Although Kant has always received the
honours of the academic world, the latter almost ignored or dismissed his political thought
during the 19th century.
The development of a structured international community started again with Woodrow
Wilson’s Fourteen Points. Wilson aimed at establishing mechanisms for a longlasting peace.
During his speech to the US Senate on 10th July 1919, Wilson stated that:
“The promises governments were making to one another about the way in which labor was
to be dealt with, by law not only but in fact as well, would remain a mere humane thesis if
there was to be no common tribunal of opinion and judgment to which liberal statesmen
could resort for the influences which alone might secure their redemption. A league of free
nations had become a practical necessity. Examine the treaty of peace and you will find that
everywhere throughout its manifold provisions its framers have felt obliged to turn to the
League of Nations as an indispensable instrumentality for the maintenance of the new order
it has been their purpose to set up in the world,—the world of civilized men. (Wilson, 1919)”
In this statement Wilson advocated the idea of a community among equals which the USA
could have led towards a liberal model (and this never happened because the USA never
joined the League of Nations). The idea of common rules and common mechanisms to avoid
wars among states and organized according to the principles of peaceful relations and justice.
Although the League of Nations was quite far from Kant’s proposal in Perpetual Peace and,
and it eventually failed to create an enduring and solid system to prevent World War II, it
represented the very first attempt to create an international community according to some
federal principles.
The goal of internationalism is combining both the principle of nationality on one side and
creating an international community on the other one. Hedley Bull (1977), whose theory find
its roots in Grotian tradition (Cutler, 1991), used to be very critical towards Hobbesian
theories in international relations as well as towards Kantian cosmopolitanism, even if he
probably misunderstood the Kantian distinction between federation and republic (Hoffman,
1986). Bull (1977) stated that tolerance and mutual understanding were necessary in
fostering the international society.
“A society of states (or international society) exists when a group of states, conscious of
certain common interests and common values, form a society in the sense that they conceive
themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and
share in the working of common institutions” (Bull, 2012, p. 13).
Bull apparently ruled out any possible development towards any kind of supranational
federalism, and somehow defended the system of sovereign states as being the most
functional to preserve international peace and its laws. Nonetheless he individuated some
elements that are consistent with federal principles and communities: mutual respect of
independence and sovereignty, preserving and enforcing peace, tolerance for diversity, but
rejecting the idea of a supranational polity.
By recognising the importance of the state as an international subject, internationalism put
its focus on those as the main characters of the global community. By contrast the federalist
stream traditionally put its focus on developing stronger international organizations, aiming
to make them develop into closer federal systems according to Watts’ definitions. Kant
proposed a model based on developing a federation of states sharing the same structure and
the same ideology. The dynamics between internal organization of member states and the
way they are organised internationally are important: as they are connected. So did the
federalist and the post-Kantian theorists, like most recently did David Held (1995), Jürgen
Habermas (1998), Daniele Archibugi (2008) and Lucio Levi (2005), supporting the idea to
create a democratic framework for global governance and more efficient forms of federality
to address globalization and problems like global warming, international terrorism, and tax
evasion. The Kantian idea of basic republican principles and supranational constitutionalism
found a very limited place in the League of Nations. Wilson’s proposal had a Kantian basis,
since its proposal aimed to have a membership of national and liberal democratic states, but
its proposal failed to address the issue of limiting sovereignty by sharing it through common
institutions and legal enforcement mechanisms. Nonetheless his proposal represented a first
step in creating an international framework for peace.
By questioning the neorealist definition (Waltz, 1985) describing international relations as
anarchy, internationalism supports the idea of an international society, whose key actors are
the states. Everything states do in international relations is not just for idealism, to create a
more peaceful world, but mainly for self-interest. Internationalism recognizes this, but argues
that international and perpetual peace is in the interest of all states, weak and strong.
International peace is the best scenario for states to preserve their sovereignty and their
welfare. Accordingly, sovereign states should act on the basis of a rational calculation of costs
and benefits both in the long and in the short run. The rationality implies that long-run and
high politics (Hoffmann 1995, Saurrugger 2014) prevail over short run and low politics
interests, and political bargaining in international organisations becomes the measure of
influence and power of the member states, and nevertheless the main decisional moment in
the international community. By recognizing the importance of the international society,
advocates of internationalism also support the need of developing the elements of that.
Internationalism used to support the development of international organizations, of
international law as well as more interdependence among the members of the international
community and to encourage transnational initiatives. Therefore Internationalists adopt the
Grotian tradition of international relations, while rejecting more universalist Kantian
interpretations. Internationalism asserts and supports the existence of an international
society based on moral principles, common values, mutual respect and prudence (Cutler,
1991), but even if it accepts very limited degrees of federality, the acceptance of nation-states
as main actors remains undisputed. It tends to discourage protectionism, since trade is
regarded as one of the main bonds among peoples and countries. In the last few years,
international organisations and international law tended to promote other kinds of actors
beyond states: these are individual citizens, NGOs and multinational companies. Nonetheless,
internationalism (in its liberal developments) tend to put people as well as states on the same
level (Nye, 1992). Halliday (2008, p.70) wrote on the socialist motto “proletarians of the world
unite!” that it was about combining different national organisations, rather than forming a
single, global one. The same could be said about internationalism: it is not about forming a
single polity, but it is about structuring different polities in a single forum, without creating
any new form of polity.
Similar tendencies cold be found within the Kantian and the post-Kantian tradition, too. On
one hand, by accepting the role of states as main actors in international relations and taking
the idea of global federation as unachievable, they abandon the cosmopolitan ground of
Kantianism and adopt a more Grotian and constructivist approach. However even if those do
not rule out that the international society could develop in terms of federality towards a
closer model of federal system, they assert that federal experiences among states are more
likely to happen among states which shares certain and common cultural elements and a
precise geographic location. On the other hand international federalists since the end of WWII
(Reves, 1947) remained very critical towards internationalism. Paradoxically, their criticism
towards internationalism is much closer to realism and Hobbesian theory. For federalists, the
development of a world federation remains fundamental, because the anarchical
international society is doomed to fail, since the governments would always put their national
interest before humankind’s interest (Albertini, 1979) and because in a globalized economy,
the markets need global laws (Levi, 2012).
More specifically, from the epistemological point of view liberal internationalism and
federalism are not applicable on the same level. Federalism by itself could explain the
dynamics of international relations among sovereign states, when it comes to the regional
economic, military and political integration (Haas, 1958. Dosenrode, 2007) and is both
applicable as a scientific and normative principle for comparative studies. This implies that
federal theory will represent a valid methodology for comparing different federal systems,
and in explaining the integration process in the EU as well as other unions of states. When it
comes to describing federalism as an IR theory by its own, this meets the criticisms of many
scholars. Dosenrode, for instance (2010: 11) asserted that federalism might have at least a
liberal and a realist branch: a liberal one, focused on the free will of member states to
undertake a process of integration and federalisation and a realist one, focused on the theory
of federalism as a reaction to external coercion and external enemies (Riker, 1964).
Nonetheless, internationalism and federalism share the same set of Kantian values. Both
prioritise peace and its conservation as their main purpose. Both share the idea of mutuality
as a core principle for the relations among political units, specifically when it comes to the
theories of horizontal federalism. Another main point is the mutual respect for each other’s
independence and sovereignty. While the realists assert the role of power as the main
element in IR, both federalists and internationalists assert the importance of equality and
cooperation of parts within international relations.
When it comes to European Union, internationalism has its correspondence in
intergovernmental theories of European integration, with which it shares the same
background and the same ideological background. The centrality of states, their role as
promoters of the European integrations for their own interest and survival in the international
stage are part of the same narrative. The internationalist/intergovernmental approach finds
it application in those areas where intergovernmental method prevails.
Confederalism and confederations
While being dismissed over the last decades as a hybrid form of government doomed to
failure (Forsyth, Watts, Albertini), the study of confederations faced a comeback thanks to
the development of the European Union (EU) and the rising interest in supranational
integration (Elazar, 1998) among other regional and macro-regional organisations like the
Association of East-Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR)
and the African Union (AU). Confederalism represents an option for those countries willing to
develop more political and economic integration, and aiming to a closer relationship inside a
single organisation but without giving significant sovereign powers to the confederal
authority. In confederations the source of sovereignty remains in the hands of their members.
This does not exclude that confederations have typical elements and symbols of sovereignty
and that they are strictly connected to a limited geographic dimension, and a common,
ideological and cultural identity. Those elements make confederations closer to federal and
national states. Switzerland, developed its civic and national symbols in the Middle Ages,
while the Confederate States of America (CSA) had strong confederal symbols, which after
the end of Civil War were adopted by some of the former Confederate States. Still now, the
flags, the anthems, and the heraldry of the CSA are part of the regional identity of the states
of the American South and unfortunately they are very popular among American white
supremacists. In the case of Germany, the confederal idea was linked to the national identity
and to the idea of unifying the German-speaking community under a single state. Although
the confederal institutions remained always weak and subjected to the Austrian-Prussian
dynamics, the German Confederation provided the framework for the creation of the German
Customs Union (Zollverein) and later for the Prussian-led North German confederation.
According to Watts, confederations “occur where several pre-existing polities join together
to form a common government for certain limited purposes […], but the common government
is dependent upon the will of the constituent governments.”(2008: 10) Therefore confederal
governments have only indirect electoral legitimacy and limited fiscal base as well as more
limited rights of initiative in comparison to those of any federal one. Usually, their political
agenda is set by the most influential and powerful members in terms of population, fiscal
resources and military powers. In many historical confederations, the military was just
residually under control of the confederal government. Defence is shared with the member
states or is almost entirely under the control of member states, depending on the
constitutional arrangement. Historically, there were many cases of confederations of states:
the most meaningful for this analysis are the United States of America under the Articles of
Confederation, the Swiss Confederation before the French invasion in 1798 and then from
1815 to 1848 under the Federal Treaty, the German Confederation, and the Confederate
States of America. Other kind of confederations and unions, such as the ancient, medieval
and early modern confederations (such as the Netherlands under the Republic of the Seven
United Provinces) are less important for our analysis. These are too ancient and too different
in terms of polity to be taken for a comparative analysis. Similarly, the various southernAmerican confederal experiences in the 19th century were short-lived and cursed from their
own foundation by civil wars, internal conflicts and political turmoil. Others, like the various
Arab confederal projects from the 1950s to the 1970s, remained just promises and
agreements but never fully materialised, with the sole exception of the United Arab Emirates
(UAE).
Similarly to federalism, confederalism constitutes both a normative term and an ideology.
However, many considered the confederal stage just as a mid-term step of the evolution of
confederations from unions of states to federal states. This implies that in the long term a
confederation is always doomed: either it becomes a federation or it collapses.
History seems to suggest that this assertion is true. On one hand, the Republic of the Seven
United Provinces became a unitary state under the hegemony of the House of Orange, while
the Swiss federal government managed to remove veto power from cantons and implement
a federal civil law. The United States abandoned the Articles of Confederation in favour of the
new federal constitution. In the Canadian experience, “the Confederation” means the process
of federalisation of the federal dominion of Canada in 1867. On the other hand, the German
Confederation ceased to exist because of the internal competition between Austria and
Prussia. Although its constitution and historical documents represent a model for
understanding confederalism, the Confederate States of America ceased to exist after the
defeat in the Civil War and we can never know how it would have developed. However, some
cases of confederal unions remain. Watts (2008: 55-56) indicated those as the United Arab
Emirates and the European Union. The former is the only successful case among the federal
experiences in the Arab world in the 1960s and 1970s. Applying Forsyth’s definition of union
of states, these are “the intermediate stage between interstate and intrastate relations.”
(1981, p. 7).
While nowadays the scholars in federal studies agree that confederations and federations are
different forms of federal political systems, the development of these definitions have been
long and has been subjected to historical accidents and different interpretations. It is possible
to find the roots of this transformation over the last two centuries.
Before the American Revolutionary War most political thinkers considered federalism and
confederalism as synonyms (Burgess, 2006) and perhaps no one had the necessity to give a
distinction between the two. The real dichotomy “federalism vs confederalism” rose for the
first time with the clash of ideas during the Philadelphia Convention and the Federalist vs
Antifederalists Debate in 1787 and in 1788. In that debate Federalists opposed Antifederalists’
arguments in favour of the new federal Constitution and vice-versa. Perhaps 1789 is the year,
which separates confederalism from federalism (Ibid.). The confrontation between Publius on
one hand and Brutus, the Farmer and the other writers on the other, was fundamental in
shaping the different and distinct forms of government and ideologies that we now identify
in federation and federalism on one hand and confederation and confederalism on the other.
When Edmund Randolph opened the Federal Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia, some
weaknesses were immediately highlighted. These concerned the inability to secure the Union
against external invasions and the inability to enforce international agreements, as well as
the lack of constitutional instruments to manage institutional crisis and quarrels between
States (Madison, Larson, Winship, 2011). In addition, the lack of a single legislation on trade
and commerce, the impossibility for the Union to defend itself from the states and the nonsuperiority of the Articles of Confederation to the constituent state constitutions (Madison)
were also discussed as some of the reasons of inefficiency. These elements weakened the
Union and put its own existence in peril. The aim of the Federalists was to prevent any form
of implosion and division of the United States into a system of sovereign states in competition
and conflict among themselves, to prevent the fragmentation of North America, avoiding
wars among sovereign republics and preventing any of these states to pursue a hegemonic
position above the others. Although their opponents shared the same purpose to preserve
the welfare and the internal peace of the Union, their visions on the future of the
Confederation were completely different.
In regard to the exchange of opinion among Federalists and Antifederalists, Burgess (2006,
p.) and Diamond (1961, p.) before him wrote that it needed a more accurate analysis. First of
all the positions among the so-called Antifederalists were very heterogeneous. The opposition
to the proposed Constitution, the insistence on individual liberty and the support for the
rights of states and their sovereignty were the elements which kept them united during the
debate. It is important to point out that the Antifederalists were not assertive and
unapologetic supporters of the Articles of Confederation, but many of them considered the
Confederation a good form of government, whose Articles needed to be corrected in its most
unclear or inefficient passages.
Generally, the most criticised part by the same Antifederalists was the lack of common
legislation in single policy areas, such as trade or naturalisation. In the antifederalist n.11
Agrippa stated “that Congress has not the sole power to regulate the intercourse between us
and foreigners. Such a power extends not only to war and peace, but to trade and
naturalization” (Agrippa, 1787).
Generally, the Antifederalists were aware of the weaknesses of the previous, confederal
constitution, but were at the same time far more skeptical about the solution which Hamilton,
Jay and Madison developed. Similarly, some of them were aware that the failure of the
constitution could have led to the collapse of the Confederation.
Some claim that this debate did not turn the United States from a league of states into a
federation, but it just led the USA to dismiss an inefficient federal constitution in order to
adopt a more efficient model (Wheare, 1963). Before the debate, the same Hamilton used
the terms federalism and federation in regard to the previous Articles of Confederation
especially in the first Federalist Papers (Morison, 1925).
After a heated debate, the State of New York and all the thirteen states adopted the Federal
Constitution and the Federalists, under the leadership of James Madison, managed to
accommodate some of the points which made the Antifederalists more sceptical and critical
about the institutional framework. The Bill of Rights represented a big step from the Federalist
side towards the Antifederalist demands. After the approval of the Constitution, many
Antifederalists like James Monroe accepted to work in the new political framework, thus
legitimising the federal institutions but opposing the policies of the new-founded Federalist
Party, while the most radical decided to withdraw from political activity or to continue at state
level.
The Antifederalists had to accept the new constitution also for another reason: their inability
to propose an alternative to the federal Constitution. There were many disagreements on the
way the Articles of Confederation could be fixed and on the future of the United States as a
national entity. This lack of initiative and unity on the side of the Antifederalists is the major
element which made the Federalists win the debate and shape the American institutions. The
victory of Hamilton, Madison and their followers was crucial in reshaping the terminology of
federalism.
From this debate it is possible to define the ideology and theory of confederalism: in this
framework the confederal government is no sovereign, but it is an agent of the governments
and therefore it should be subordinated to the will of the confederated states (Wheare,
1963). For instance, while the federation has its own autonomous source of legitimacy and its
own sovereignty, a confederation is defined as a union of sovereign states; its sovereignty is
based on the will of the constituent units and therefore depends on the extension of the
powers that these decide to concede to the confederal government (Forsyth, 1981). The
confederal government has no legitimacy by itself, but its legitimacy comes from the
constituent units and relies on them (Watts, 2008). While in a federal system both federal
and constituent units are sovereign at the same time, the constituent units are the sole
depositaries of sovereignty in a confederation. This model of confederal governance was still
quite popular among many Americans even after the federal constitution came into force
(Calhoun, 1828) and only the military defeat of the confederates in the Civil War weakened
the supporters of this proposition.
By contrast, the innovation of the Federalists was to create a new framework which could
give the new federation the possibility to endure. It was not a league what the Federalists
wanted to achieve, but a new and different form of federal government – within a democratic
framework.
Switzerland could be considered the European example of transition from being a league of
cantons to a federal state. Similarly to what happened in North America in the 1860s,
Switzerland became in the 1840s the field of confrontation between the supporters of the
sovereignty of the cantons and the supporters of federal authority. This conflict, which
eventually led to the Sonderbund War, started on some disputes regarding the role of the
Church and of the Catholic clergy in cantonal politics. In this debate, the Catholic reactionary
cantons acted against the progressive ones, in defence of the old the privileges of the Church.
Soon it was no longer a conflict regarding the role of Jesuits in education, but whether the
Eidgenossenschaft could continue to exist as a whole political entity (Forsyth, 1981).
Disagreements regarding the future of the Swiss political system arose just after the defeat
of Napoleon. Two different coalitions of Cantons supported different draft Constitutions,
respectively led by Zurich and Berne, one more modelled on the Helvetic Republic, the other
on the pre-Napoleonic Confederation. The intervention of the Great Powers prevented a civil
war from breaking out, and imposed the two factions to reach a compromise. The Federal
Treaty was therefore a solution, which combined the demands of the cantons supporting a
complete rollback, with the ones of the cantons supporting the institutional innovations
introduced by Napoleon in Switzerland (Church, 2013)
The Federal Treaty gave the definition of the Swiss political system as a Bund, a league of
sovereign cantons. The confederal authority remained competent for the army. So the only
policies which were implemented on a federal level were security and defence.
It is worthy to remember that the Old Eidgenossenschaft faced many threats to its existence
throughout the centuries. Over the 16th and 17th century, the cantons had to settle many
peace agreements among themselves and eventually the first attempt to establish a single
defence system through the Defensionales of Wyl and Baden, thus gradually neutralising the
interreligious conflicts and preventing the involvement of Switzerland in the Thirty Years’
War. This was the reason why both the Great Powers and the Swiss representatives in the
Federal Diet prohibited in the Federal Treaty any alliance among cantons against the others.
The Article 6 of the Federal Treaty clearly stated that: “Cantons may not forge coalitions
amongst themselves that are harmful to the Federal Treaty or the rights of the other cantons”
(Swiss Federal Treaty, 1815). Once the Sonderbund was revealed, the separatists openly acted
against the treaty. That argument was very favourable to the Swiss federal authorities in their
reaction against the Sonderbund, thus preventing any external intervention by conservative
powers in favour of the secessionist cantons.
While on one hand the Federal Treaty could be considered a good example of a confederal
framework, in which the confederal authority was limited to a single policy area, the new
framework which emerged after the Sonderbund can be considered a federation.
The Swiss federal constitution of 1848 stated that the people of the 22 sovereign cantons of
Switzerland, united through the present union, constituted collectively the Swiss
Confederation, while article III stated that the Cantons are sovereign, so far as their
sovereignty is not limited by the Federal Constitution, and accordingly they exercise all rights
which are not delegated to the Federal power (Swiss Federal Constitution, 1848). In this
constitution it is clearly recognized that the independent sovereignty of the federal authority,
which the Federal Treaty of 1815 was not stated. In the Federal Treaty sovereignty is applied
in regard to the cantons. The passage of the Eidgenossenschaft from a confederal structure
to a federal one was possible by limiting the sovereignty of the cantons while recognising a
distinct and limited sovereignty of the federal government.
The federal Constitution of 1848 was a fundamental step in limiting the role of Cantons on
the military and the usage of Cantonal Militias. From 1848 and on the federal government
became the sole legitimate user of military power and the sole representative of the Swiss
nation as a whole.
Another step towards the federalisation of Switzerland was the Federal Constitution of 1874.
Article 3 stated that “The Cantons are sovereign insofar as their sovereignty is not limited by
the Federal Constitution and, as such, exercise all rights which are not entrusted to the federal
power” (Swiss Federal Constitution 1874). This represented a clear step towards the
federalisation of Switzerland. Later in the article 6 regarding the cantonal constitutions, the
constitution asserted that “The Cantons are bound to request the Confederation to guarantee
their constitutions.”
The final and definitive step towards the federalisation of Switzerland was represented by the
entry into force of the Swiss Civil Code in 1907, unifying the different legal systems in the
federal cantons and ending the legal fragmentation of the federation. Switzerland remained
a confederation by name only, since it maintained the ancient official name of
Eidgenossenschaft and its Latin translation of Confoederatio Helvetica, but is a federation in
all its developments and with its own particularities
Following the Swiss, German and American experiences, the understanding on the differences
between confederation (Staatenbund) and federation (Bundesstaat) was finally developed in
the last decades of the 19th century. As already discerned, Sigwick mentioned the two terms
in his masterwork (1903) as two different expressions of federality. He was not alone in
investigating in the American, Swiss and German confederal experiences. Forsyth found that
Tocqueville and his followers (1981, p. 136) played a meaningful role in developing the study
of federations and confederations in Europe during 19th century. In his Democracy in America
Tocqueville managed to introduce the developments of American federalism among the
European audience, thus sparking a debate in the academic world. The study of federalism
and federations as separate political systems met interest as well as some resistance among
European scholars. Max von Seydel asserted that federal states did not actually exist (1893,
p. 17) but only unitary states on one hand and confederations on the other, since sovereignty
was considered indivisible. Therefore, according to Seydel’s interpretation, federations
represented a hybrid category that actually did not stand to fact-checking. His theory about
the lack of difference between unitary state and federal state and the confederation as a
separate body had been proven as erroneous, but had limited success among the academic
world in those years. Scholars like Le Fur and Haenel (Forsyth, p. 138) accepted that
federations were closer to unitary states than to confederations. Le Fur, for instance insisted
that federations shared the same federal elements as confederations and gave this definition
of confederations: “An organization of sovereign states in which the central power has its own
legal personality and permanent organs.” Therefore, Le Fur highlighted the presence of a form
of central government, permanent organs and legal personality as the main elements which
distinguished confederations from alliances. At the same time Le Fur stated that
confederations, similarly to leagues, have no common people to represent, no single polity
but each state represented its own people. Confederations do not have their own citizenship.
Other points Le Fur highlighted, were the ultimate rights of the states to secede or nullify the
confederal government. Le Fur also stated that in a confederal system, confederal institutions
have or should have an external sovereignty, but stated that internal sovereignty belongs to
its members. Therefore confederal executive institutions rely on the cooperation of their
states to implement their decisions and legal acts. Le Fur stated that in confederal systems, a
federal judicial organ would be necessary to settle disputes, but they are adjunct elements,
not essential (Forsyth, p. 141). The author in the end asserted that confederations were not
permanent states and that they were doomed to become full federal states or collapse. Carl
Schmitt (1965, p. 369), some decades later, stated that the common element in
confederations and federations is the “duty” to settle every dispute through the legal
mechanisms provided by the federal institutions.
Confederalism today
Although the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is now a federal country, it is one of the existing
federations that maintained confederal elements and has a very recent confederal history. In
the United Arab Emirates the decisional powers still actually belong to the most powerful
emirates, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, which exercise a veto power over the others and over the
federal authorities and especially inside the Federal Supreme Council, which is made of the
rulers of the member Emirates and is the supreme organ of the UAE. According to the UAE
Constitution, it retains the supreme control over all the affairs in general, appoints the
Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union and decides over defence and foreign
affairs. Inside the Federal Council both emirates play the main role and their role could be
somehow compared to France and Germany in the EU. Disagreements between the two
emirates led to a delay in the merger of their own armies and the full creation of a UAE army
had to wait until the 1990s. Although being a federation by name, the democratic process
inside the UAE remains very weak. The National Council is appointed, one half by the rulers
of each emirate, while the other half is indirectly elected by their own college. The lack of
democracy as well as the strong intergovernmental structure of the Supreme Council are the
two elements that make the United Arab Emirates a federation with strong confederal
elements, a hybrid system (Watts, 2008) if not the only surviving confederation.
Nonetheless, many scholars agree that the EU is the federal system that more adopted the
main characteristics of a confederal system.
Federations and federalism
Federations represents the final and last stage in the scale of federality. It is the most
developed, mature and complete form of federal system and represent the institutional
application of federalism, which on its turn is the most structured development in the idea of
sovereignty pooling, whose finale outcome is a creating a federal polity together with the
polities of the constituent members.
Although the roots of federalism as normative principle date back to the middle Ages and the
medieval forms of territorial autonomy and territorial leagues (the Swiss federal pact was one
of those, others were the Hanse League, the Veronese and Lombard Leagues in Northern
Italy), the ideology of federalism had its first codifications throughout the European
Renaissance and the early Modern Age. Francesco Guicciardini (1540), Johannes Althusius
(1603), Samuel Von Pufendorf (1672), Abbe’ de Saint-Pierre (1713) made significant
contributions in developing the main elements of federal theory, but thanks to Immanuel
Kant (1795), Alexander Hamilton’s and James Madison’s Federalist Papers (1788) and their
influence, it developed into the current forms of federalism. The study of federalism and
federal systems thrived in Europe and especially in the Anglo-Saxon world during the second
half of the 19th. Supranational and continental federalism had a new Renaissance especially
in Britain, whose political thinkers and policy makers had to deal with the enormous
dimensions of the Empire. Federalism was applied in the development of Canada (1867) and
Australia (1901), and meanwhile the federalist proposals met the interest of British
politicians, intellectuals and policy makers, interested in new form of governance for their
enormous empire. The Imperial Federation League was founded in 1884, with the purpose of
advocating a reform of the empire, by modelling after the Dominion of Canada and
transforming it in a global, Anglo-Saxon federation (Burgess, 1995)
Interest in federalism as peace-resolution and peace-keeping tool had four different phases
of development. The first one dates back to the Interwar period. That age gave the light to
the League of Nations, to Aristide Briand’s proposal for a European federation, the creation
of the Federal Union group in Britain, and the Count Kalergi’s Paneuropa movement in the
German speaking countries. The second more after World War II, with the birth of new
movements advocating the unification of Europe in the post war period, the start of the
integration process, the birth of think tanks like the World Federalist Movement, but also with
the birth of the United Nations and its Charter. The third phase emerged with the end of
colonial era in the 1960s, with the rise of conflicts in post-Colonial scenarios and the search
of new institutional and political instruments to manage highly divided societies and political
units. The fourth phase dates back to the collapse of Post-communist system and the
necessity to manage conflicts and ethnic diversities in those countries emerged from the fall
of the Soviet block and its satellites.
The end of Cold war represented a new renaissance for federalism as an instrument to share
decision-making, governmental functions and developing supranational bodies too. The
failures of the United Nations to cope with the Bosnian and Rwandan crisis in the 1990s and
the progressive changes in the post-Cold War scenario sparked a debate about the necessity
to reform the United Nations towards a more inclusive, efficient and accountable structure.
Most recently, the introduction of the Euro, the introduction of the Treaty of Lisbon, and the
following turmoil of the Eurozone sparked heated discussions about the future of the EU and
the application of asymmetrical federal principles. Additionally, the migrant crisis and the
demand for a different management of the Schengen area as well as the demand of different
degrees of EU Integration, and eventually the talks about UK withdrawal from the European
Union, the rise of nationalist forces are deepening the debate between those who oppose
European federalism and those supporting it.
Federalism has at least three meaning. The first one is a political study of all federal systems,
of decentralisation and centralisation within states and union of states, regionalisation, as
well as the study of internal dynamics within federations. The second one refers to a system
of sharing and devolving state powers across different centres according to subsidiarity
criteria. For instance in a federation each level of government represents a different polity,
each with its own sovereignty. The third and last option, federalism is the ideology of unifying
constituent units through the rule of law and agreements with the purpose of removing the
causes of war, securing peace within territorial entities. This terminology applies, for instance,
to Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, as well as to Altiero Spinelli, Ernesto Rossi and all
the advocates of European federalism. On the contrary, federalism could also denote the
support for more decentralisation and devolution towards local and regional communities or
the preference for a federal state over centralised models. This is the case of Argentinian
federalists in 19th Century, as well as the supporters of federalism in many European
centralised countries. For extension, in many post-Kantian developments, federalism could
have the ultimate and potential purpose of unifying the human community as a single federal
polity (Albertini, 1980).
In the end, federalism has at least three meanings: it could be either a field of studies, a
normative and constitutional principle, and an ideology.
According to Watts definition, federations “compound polities, combining strong constituent
units and a strong general government” (2008: 10). Watts stated that 27 countries were
meeting the criteria of functioning federations.
All the federations taken into consideration not only by Watts, but also by other scholars like
Burgess and Kincaid, have these some points in common. Firstly, at least two levels of
government exist, each with its own independent and democratically elected parliament or
assembly and head of government, and each with own competences. Secondly, following
Schmitt definition of federal bond, a Constitutional Federal Court whose decisions are binding
shall be established. In a federation, each level of government has its own democratic and
fiscal legitimacy. Additionally, although fiscal autonomy of constituent units is a fundamental
principle of federations, federal authorities apply redistributive policies among constituent
units. Thirdly, traditional elements of sovereignty like defence and foreign policy are
performed at federal level, Similarly, monetary policies are carried by a single Central bank
on federal level with its own autonomy. Indeed, competences and roles of Federal
government and Constituent Units are distributed according to principles of subsidiarity.
Eventually, a diffused and close civic and cultural, even national identity shall exist in order to
. Burgess used to call it as “the federal spirit” and mentioned it as the “bonds that unite the
political community – the reconciliation of individual and collective needs that bind the
political community”. According to Law, (2012: 114) it is possible to make a distinction
between federal state and federal union according to the degree of unity of the peoples of
the constituent member states, i.e. if there is a single demos or many demoi. Despite this
differentiation, a federation survives when civic, federal identity, exceed and integrate ethnonational distinctions.
Federations are systems of polities. In confederations, the existence of the confederal polities
depends on the will of the single member states of the confederation. In federations, on the
contrary, the existence of the federal polity is not subjected to the will of the Constituent
units. While any country has the right to withdraw from any international organization and
confederal system, secession is not allowed in any of the existing federations, with the only
exception of Ethiopia. Nonetheless the single polities of member states and constituent units
do not cease to exist in federations, but they co-exist together with the federal polity. The
latter comes to life because of voluntary actions by constituent units, but from the moment
the federal polity is born, both have their own dynamics, interactions and developments. In a
federal constitution, both levels are sovereign, each on its own field. Both levels of
government have their own electoral base and source of legitimacy. Generally in federations,
the source of legitimacy is double: the whole electoral body of citizens, which elects the lower
house and the federal president in presidential federal systems, e.g. USA, Brazil, and the
constituent units appointing or electing the representative in their own upper house.
The development of federations is strictly linked to geographic, historical, and demographic
elements. Geography plays an important role, as it does for confederations. Similarly to
former confederal systems and in contrast to international organizations, federations have
constitutional geographical limits. Of the 27 federations of the world, eight of them are
ranked among the countries having the largest area in the world: Russian Federation, Canada,
United States, Brazil, Australia, India, Argentina and Mexico. In these cases, geographic
extension and internal diversities played a meaningful role in developing federalism.
Federalism provided a political framework to manage the differences coming from having
continental or subcontinental dimensions. The micro-federations represent another
particular cases: Comoros, Micronesia and Saint Kitts and Nevis. They are essentially small
islands divided in archipelagos, so in extended areas divided by the sea and sometimes in
different ethnic and religious groups.
There are different kind of federations: the first distinction to be drawn is the one between
multi-national and mono-national federations. The presence of different ethnic and religious
groups is one of the most common elements in many federations, especially many of those
born after colonial experiences. Canada, Belgium India, Pakistan Switzerland, Ethiopia, Nepal
and Nigeria could be easily described as multi-ethnic federations. On the side, Argentina,
Austria, Brazil Germany, the USA and Australia, represent cases of federations dominated by
a single ethnic group. Nonetheless in those federations ethnic and linguistic minorities may
exist and pursue their own political agenda. In multi-national federations, different ethnic
groups have institutional and political recognition. In those models member states and subfederal polities may follow ethnic, language, and pre-existing, boundaries. This does not occur
in mono-ethnic federations, in which boundaries do not follow ethnic lines, despite existing
socioeconomic and ethnic divisions.
Federations could be either presidential or parliamentary. The presidential model is strictly
linked to the American experience, since it was implemented in the USA and then resulted in
being very successful among Latin-American federal countries: Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and
eventually Venezuela. Outside the Americas, Nigeria adopted the presidential model. By
contrast Parliamentary models resulted in being very successful in the British and European
continental experience and in its developments. In Europe Germany represents the most
successful federal model after World War II. In the former British colonies and Australia, India,
Pakistan and Canada both adopted a Westminster-style federal model. In Africa, although
being a one-party system, Ethiopia adopted a parliamentary model. Other cases are
represented by Russia, which adopted a semi-presidential model, and Switzerland, which
maintained a directorial system over the centuries. Independently from being either a
presidential or a parliamentary model, the existence of these forms of democratic
legitimation of the federal institutions represent a crucial difference with international
organisations and confederations.
Asymmetries are constant elements in almost all federations. These occur when one or more
constituent units condition the relations with the other constituent units or the entire federal
structure because these prevail in terms of geographic size, Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
and fiscal revenues, population above the others. In international relations asymmetries have
always existed, similarly political and constitutional asymmetries exist in international
organizations and confederations. In the United Nations, the five permanent members of the
Security Council, by retaining veto power and permanent membership, represent a
constitutional asymmetry. For instance in international organizations countries with more
resources, diplomatic prestige, soft and hard power are more likely to obtain more in
diplomatic negotiations and in conditioning the decisions of international organizations.
Despite having a confederal government which should represent and guarantee for all
members, in confederations major constituent units can exercise a hegemonic role and
eventually address the decisions of authorities, similarly to what happens in international
organizations. The constitutional dependency of confederal governments on constituent
units and the limited fiscal autonomy limit their capability to consistently mitigate the
influence of the most powerful states. This occurred in the case of United Arab Emirates, as
well as for Prussia and Austria in the German confederation. Federations present similar
situations. Watts (2008: 126) listed the main cases of political asymmetries caused by
significant gaps in terms of population and economy. Among the former, Ontario and Quebec
for Canada. Oromia and Amhara in Ethiopia, New South Wales and Victoria in Australia. On
the economic side, in Brazil the South-East Region, which includes the provinces of Rio de
Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Espirito Santo and Minas Gerais, represent alone 55,2% of the GDP of
Brazil. When it comes to Canada, the province of Ontario has around 36%-40% of Canadian
federal GDP, while Quebec and Alberta are both 19% and British Columbia 12%. In Nigeria
regions like Lagos play an overwhelming role in the country’s economy. Devolved states like
Spain and the United Kingdom face similar issues, with the composed of four nations, of which
England represents alone 84% of the British population, and 54% of its territory.
Despite constituent members retain high degrees of autonomy, federations have the
constitutional role to provide redistributive policies and cope with internal asymmetries. The
supremacy of federal law, the autonomy of federal budget and taxation, as well as the
democratic legitimacy offer federal authorities constitutional tools to limit the autonomy of
states. Nonetheless, many federal systems have developed forms of constitutional
asymmetries. Quebec’s status in the Canadian federation is a clear example of asymmetry.
Watts highlighted other cases of asymmetric federations for India, Bosnia & Herzegovina,
Malaysia, Belgium Comoros and Saint Kitts and Nevis.
Cultural and different ethnic elements are more likely to trigger asymmetrical relations in
federal systems. Again, Quebec falls in this class of case studies as well as Bosnia Herzegovina,
Malaysia and Comoros
Asymmetrical arrangements in federations have intrinsically a double outcome. Although
those are a tool for settling internal issues and managing potential conflicts due to ethnic
diversity, and gaps in economics and population, and they succeeded in accommodating
separatist pressures and differences within federal systems (Watts: 130), in the long run they
could also become a pathology and lead to major dysfunctions. By adding elements of variable
geometry or variable speed, the federal institutional framework becomes more complex. But
in those cases, in which federations have major difficulties in developing a consensus and the
“federal spirit” (Burgess, 2013) and in which constituent states show different political
agenda, this remain an alternative to collapse.
Confederations and international organizations are generally considered to be more
vulnerable and more fragile as institutions. This is definitely because unlike federations, have
fewer elements of sovereignty and statehood, but federations, like any other federal political
system, could suffer from the same pathologies that may lead to the collapse of the formers.
In the world we have 27 federations. In the last century many federations have come to life
and ceased to exist. Jugoslavia (2003), Czechoslovakia (1993), the Union of the Soviet Socialist
Republic (1991). In these cases, federations collapsed and turned into different sovereign
states. In other cases, countries like Cameroon (1972) or Democratic Republic of Congo
(1967), the United States of Indonesia (1950), turned into unitary states after short federal
phases. The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (1963), the West Indies Federation (1962),
as well as the French Federations of West Africa and Equatorial Africa, undertook their
development during the colonial era, but ceased to exist just shortly after their independence.
Pakistan faced a major crisis with the secession of East Pakistan (Bangladesh), while Singapore
represents one of the fewest examples of expulsion of a federative unit from the federation.
Watts, as well as other scholars, highlighted that federations fall because of lack of political
consensus and federal citizenship, i.e. the lack of a federal demos, the inconsistency and
unsustainability of the federal structure, the inability to cope with internal asymmetries.
Federalism and confederalism in the European integration
Confederalism and federalism have always been constant elements in the debate regarding
the development of the European Community since its dawn after World War II (WWII). On
one side Altiero Spinelli, Walther Hallstein and the federalists movements born throughout
Europe in the 1940s, the Italian European Federalist Movement in 1943, the Union of
European Federalists in 1946, the Pan-European Congress in 1948 (Corsetti & Pistone, 2006).
On the other side, the federalist tendencies faced a strong resistance by French Gaullists and
other forces advocating more intergovernmental approaches. The European Union is the
outcome of the dichotomy between these two forces and represents a federal system made
of different circles, with different degrees of integration and vision on the European
integration. Therefore the European Union is made of different levels of federality. According
to the framework of multiple federalities: the membership of the European Union can be
categorized in different according to the degree of integration they accepted to embrace. The
only membership of the European Union alone represents a first step of federality in the
European context. Membership of the European Union represents the model of symmetric
federalism, due to the same obligations and the same acquis of laws that the Member States
have to accept.
The Eurozone: the federal core of the European Union
Conclusion
By highlighting the federal principle, which is an intrinsic element in those ideologies
encompassing any form of aspiration to peace and closer relationship among peoples, it is
possible to have a full spectrum of its different degrees of development. Scholars fail to agree
on a single definition of federalism and among them there are many different visions on what
federalism is. Although federalism could have different understandings, it is necessary to be
clear and straight in applying the criteria of federalism. Federlism comes to existence when
the federality, in the terms of federal community, put the unity and the political union at its
centre and accept it as driving element of its polity and aims to creating a federal citizenship
by developing a federal statehood and maintaining the sovereignty of the single constituent
members in their own area. This makes possible the definition of federalism as both ideology
and form of state. Without this dividing line of sovereignty, any federation in any of its
proposition, either a “weak federation” (Moravcsik, 2001) or “loose federation” (Wallace,
1996) would just be a confederation. Law (2012:) stated that federations are not to be
considered as a single and uniform model, but should be divided into two categories: federal
unions of states and federal states, with the former not having a federal sovereignty unlike
the latter. Although it seems that such a distinction has foundations both politically and
legally, especially since the Federal German Constitutional Court asserted the existence of a
Staatenverbund regarding the EU (German Constitutional Court, 1993), it is questionable to
introduce a new form of federal system in this discourse, in the terms of an intermediate step
between confederation and federation. Nonetheless, it is to consider that confederations
may have their own development towards full federal sovereignty in their institutional
existence. In this framework the stage of the “federal union of states”, instead of being an
intermediate stage on its own, should be considered either a confederation with stronger
federal elements, so likely to become a full federation, or a federation on its own, if it has
already a federal sovereignty. In this particular case, the distinction between federal union of
state or federal state, although more articulate, is not relevant.
It is to be clarified whether it is possible to define a form of “federalism without federation.”
(Bomberg, 2008) In this analysis, this definition is applicable to sovereign countries like Spain,
United Kingdom, or Italy, so in systems which already have sovereign federal governments
and forms of devolution and strong autonomies, without being formally federal states. When
it comes to unions of sovereign countries, both in the forms of international organizations or
confederations, federalism is not applicable, but other forms of federal principles are. This is
why retrieving definitions like “federality” is necessary to simplify on one hand, but to avoid
other semantic misunderstandings on the other
Given that similar elements and different degrees of federality exist in other federations, this
might lay the foundation for a full comparative analysis. Comparing the European Union and
the Eurozone to other federal systems will represent the starting point of a new “federalist”
interpretation not of the European integration, but also of other processes of regional
integration.
Among those different levels of EU integration, the Eurozone is the most advanced level and
generally represents one of the highest stages of supranational integration in the world. By
unifying their currencies and establishing the European Central Bank, the members decided
to fulfil an essential passage towards federalisation. This step created a stronger
differentiation between non Euro and Euro country, in terms of different rights and
obligations. This development started from the necessity to deal with asymmetric
macroeconomic crisis and to provide a full understanding. On the same time, it created a
strong level asymmetry inside the European Union, in terms of different obligations and
rights.
A comparative analysis through the lenses of federalism could provide a framework to
compare the developments of the Eurozone and its asymmetrical federalism to similar federal
experiences in other realities and thus providing a full understanding. The dynamics between
Eurozone and European Union needs to be deeply analysed, and compared to other federal
experiences It is also to explore, using Burgess’ definition of federal spirit, if the Eurozone and
its political debate, the internal proposals for completing the Eurozone and making the
European project attractive again. I.e. if the Eurozone represents a system on its own and to
what extent this represent a federal political system, encompassing both confederal and
federal elements, and which of them prevail in this framework.
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