Sharing sovereignty is never popular. It requires political courage: the courage of the revolutionary.

In a world where the rule of law is giving way to power dynamics, citizens primarily expect Europe to protect them. The goal is not to build a centralizing “superstate,” a convenient bogeyman for nationalists, but to make Europe a democratically legitimate power capable of defending its interests and values. The real choice of the decade will be between a federal Europe, capable of taking action, and an intergovernmental Europe, condemned to be subject to the decisions of Washington, Moscow, or Beijing, as well as the energy, climate, and digital crises. Forming a more integrated economic, technological, and ecological union around a core group of states would thus allow for the completion of the capital markets union and massive, coordinated investment. A European power requires these three dimensions: producing together, certainly, but also acting together and having a unified foreign policy. As a reminder, the Union already possesses federal elements: common law, a Parliament elected by universal suffrage, a single currency, a Court of Justice, and so on. To complete a federation, a revision of the treaties or a European constituent assembly would be necessary. The current treaties already allow us to go further: abolishing the right of veto, creating transnational lists in European elections, returning to the principle of a smaller Commission, and improving the transparency of decision-making for citizens. Gabriel Attal’s proposal has the merit of putting federalism back at the heart of the French presidential debate. But the United States of Europe cannot be reduced to a partial federalism, limited to the economy. If our objective is the emergence of a true power, diplomacy, defense, and common democratic decision-making must follow.

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It is not heads of state who will create the United States of Europe – Telos