How to Improve the EU and Make it Stronger

I have two proposals to improve and streamline EU. First is to make federal legal system where federal EU laws that will take precedence over the local laws. Second is to create unified command and commander in chief for all European Armies.

Federal EU Law

First is law. EU should just adopt a federal legal model where EU writes its own statutory federal laws, and such laws should have legal precedence over national laws of each member state. 

Currently EU has a system where EU creates so called aquis (common core) and then individual member states write their own statutes, that complies with the aquis. does allow certain flexibility by allowing member states write their own laws, so long as they are compatible with the EU aquis. That worked well for old small EU that consisted of only countries with long tradition of democracy and rule of law and had time for such time-consuming process. 

However, in current 27-member large EU, such approach is wasteful and redundant. Too many local national jurisdictions make monitoring laws and practices too complicated. EU needs to be able to move fast and no longer has time to study each individual national statute book to make sure each national parliament implemented EU's decisions correctly.

Federal EU law will reduce burden not only on EU institutions but also on individual members states. Freed from implementing EU aquis, national parliaments can focus on local issues instead or simply do nothing.

Old system makes accession talks of prospecting new members too long as they cannot modify their statutes neither fast, nor adequately enough to meet the requirements. EU wants them in, they want in, but process lasts decades simply because local legislators take their sweet time writing and re-writing new statutes and EU institutions spend equally large time accessing and re-assessing these statutes. 

This repeating student class takes too long, and we need results now. Instead, we can have EU federal law and EU bodies to look after it, that function in parallel with local institutions. It is also possible to provisionally suspend new members' voting rights, just like they do with working rights currently, until certain conditions are met. Members of EEA or EFTA do not have voting rights in the EU but they enjoy most of what EU has to offer, why candidates have to do it harder way? That would allow all or most prospective members to join already now and both sides will benefit from EU expansion.

That will be better for business and individual people as well. Sure, businesses have certain confidence that common rules apply throughout, but some caveats could remain. EU federal law will make sure such caveats will no longer be the case at all.

EU Military

For about a decade people were talking about EU army. Often such talks would abruptly end with some decisive no but would eventually re-emerge. Russian war in Ukraine made these voices all the louder. Clearly a European military arm is needed.

Currently there is a lot of talk on more military spending, but, as one Irish politician have said, EU combined already has bigger and stronger military than Russia, the only problem is that it cannot use it. 

Currently all EU member state militaries are under dual NATO and national control. Individual national armes are too many and too small to make significant impact on Russia. On the other hand, using NATO combined command and control requires American approval and desire to lead the way.

Solution is simple, simply recreate NATO structures, but without Americans and give commander in chief power to the EU president with consent of the EU consul. Such European Defense Alliance will be a formidable force that will allow EU to project hard power and would deter Russia and China. 

Even if only half of national militaries are committed to EDA, and some nations get an opt-out it would still be formidable enough to deter Putin. EU will stop being toothless and will become a military power to be reconned with.

Conclusion

Federal EU Law, European Defense Alliance together with my ideas in article about Hungary will solve most of the EU problems and will make EU into a true superpower it always deserved to be.