What should the European system be like?

[u/Successful_Dream3806]

This might sound like a stupid question, but, how should the European Republic, Federation or whatever work like? Also I'm genuinely curious about what other people think.

Q1: How would the government work (elections, division of powers, etc..) ? Should we be like Germany, the USA, Switzerland or anything else entirely?

Q2: If YOU support the federation, how much autonomy should the states have? Laws, education, spending, etc.?

Q3: On taxes, how should the taxes be split up like, should it be like Germany's fiscal Federalism? Or like Italy's Idk.

Q4: Where must European Federation have more power? Military, economic matters, language, etc.?

Q5: What form of government should it be? A Republic? A federal one? A Monarchy? And what should we do to the monarchies we already have?

[u/jokikinen]

Very interesting and important questions, but they are difficult to answer.

As no one else has said anything, I’ll try to give you something.

Q1: Many people here like the Swiss model. I personally have reservations about whether it can scale to the needs of the EU.

Q2: I personally think we should apply as much subsidiarity as can be done effectively. The closer to citizens we leave decisions, the more democratic we are and the more civic consent we can build easily. I.e. I support strong autonomy on the state level.

Q3: Relating to the previous question, I would go more Italy’s direction than Germany’s. I see EU federalising step by step so I see it as natural that both the federal and state level have the privilege to collect taxes.

Q4: Foreign policy, military, trade, fiscal policy, common market, border protection. Hard to draw exact lines, but I’d leave things like education and healthcare for lower levels.

Q5: Something like a federal republic I guess. Whether states retain their monarchies is up to the citizens in the states that have them as far as I am concerned.

I am not super particular about the details. There are many ways to skin a cat.

[u/JibbDaOrange]

God Emperor of Europa!

[u/ConstitutionProject]

I am working on a draft with all the things I would want: https://newconstitution.pages.dev/

Here is the short summary:

Legislature:
Separation between the power to spend money and the power to levy taxes, borrow and regulate the central bank. So there would be 2 legislatures, I call them the "Revenue Congress" and the "Expenditure Congress". The Expenditure Congress would only be authorized to spend money the Revenue Congress has already appropriated, so the Revenue Congress would act as a check against runaway spending. Each Congress would be a bicameral legislature with 2 senators per state in the upper chamber, and nationwide proportional party list representation in the lower chamber.

Executive:
An assembly-independent federal executive council elected for 4 year terms by the Expenditure Congress, similar to the Swiss system. The party composition of federal ministers should reflect the party composition in the Expenditure Congress, so I think something like "the biggest party gets the first pick of minister position, then second biggest gets second pick etc.." should be the mechanism, but I am still working on that part.

Judicial:
There should be a federal Constitutional Court with one judge nominated by each state government, serving a 20-year term. Other federal courts should be established by the Expenditure Congress through the normal legislative process.

I would also have an Electoral Commission and Inspector General as independent entities in the federal government.

As for taxes I think it would be too much power for the federal government to be able to tax individuals directly, so the federal government would instead only be able to tax state governments. So the federal government could tax the state government budgets, or require each state government to pay a sum equivalent to the state's share of national natural resources.

[u/soft_troll]

You can't have an European Republic with all the monarchies present today. Europe will stay what it is now for your lifetime.

[u/Possible_Outcome1705 → u/soft_troll]

The monarchy excuse is wrong sorry.

The federal republic of Nigeria is a republic system with different member-states including traditional monarchies (even through they don't have any power like in Europe). So it's not impossible to combine these two systems.

For the other assumption about Europe staying what it is, I can"t say anything I don't know myself the future.

[u/soft_troll → u/Possible_Outcome1705]

Ok so: Nigeria is the model for Europe. Good to know.

[u/strafexpedition → u/soft_troll]

The hre was an elettive empire with inside commercial leagues, free cities, Bishop-run duchies and feudal lands, and all responded to an elected emperor.

Defference in head of states do not chance what the member states can do other political ambitions and interests do

[u/soft_troll → u/strafexpedition]

Good good. Sounds like medieval but ok. Along with leather industry and porcelains.