EU: Union or federal method?

I have suggested that federal decision-making or the “federal method” could replace the obsolete “Community method”, when the European Commission proposes, the Council and the European Parliament jointly dispose, and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) interprets the acts and actions.



This far the only contribution regarding the ‘cosmetic part of the question’ I have seen is by The European Citizen, who suggests the use of the “Union method”, as opposed to the “Council method” or “Special method”.

Naturally, the “Union method” in an EU context cannot be wrong, because it takes into consideration the peculiarities of the European Union (‘sui generis’). It seamlessly marks the shift from the era of the various European Communities to the verbal monolith European Union.

My reason for putting forward the “federal method” was to describe one part of the European Union more bluntly for what it is, a federal system, using terms in general use around the world, even if there are many variations between different federal systems.

In my humble opinion, political correctness should not prevent us from describing the European Union as it is, though only in part.

‘Cosmetics’, especially make-up, has been used for thousands of years both to accentuate and to conceal. Political terms aren’t that different.

The Lisbon Treaty has created a ‘verbal monolith’, but structurally and operationally the European Union is still fragmented.

In my view, “intergovernmental” still covers the rest of the areas, from decisions (predominantly) by the European Council and the Council of the European Union (Council of Ministers) to agreements made between all or some EU member states as such.

How would Herman Van Rompuy, José Manuel Barroso, Yves Leterme and Didier Reynders and and Olivier Chastel (provisionally), Jerzy Buzek, Joseph Daul, Martin Schulz, Guy Verhofstadt, Daniel Cohn-Bendit and about 501 million other Europeans (including the readers of this blog) act as make-up artists in a European Union where the Lisbon Treaty is in force?

Union method or Federal method? Something else?





Ralf Grahn





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