Federalisation of the European Union

Common card · No. 294655

There is ongoing discussion about the extent to which the European Union (EU) has already turned from a confederation (a union of sovereign states) into a federation (a single federal state with a central government, consisting of a number of partially self-governing federated states) over the course of decades, and to what degree it should continue to evolve in a federalist direction. As of April 2026, the EU has no formal plans to become a federation. Since the 1950s, European integration has seen the development of a supranational system of governance, as its institutions move further from the concept of simple intergovernmentalism and more towards a federalised system. However, with the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, new intergovernmental elements have been introduced alongside the more federal systems, making it more difficult to define the EU. The European Union, which operates through a hybrid system – thus often described as sui generis – of intergovernmentalism and supranationalism...

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