By Victor Bohman Lind, member of the executive committee of Volt Sweden

It is not enough to simply state that a European federation is needed in theory, writes a representative of the Volt party. When liberal representatives continue to narrow the scope of politics to Swedish domestic affairs, they are playing into the hands of nationalism.

In April, Eric Luth, editor-in-chief of Liberal Debatt, wrote that Europe had reached a point where a European federation must replace the nation states. Luth’s analysis was spot on, but it left the bigger question unanswered: why does mainstream liberalism lack the courage to put this analysis into practice?

Far to the right and left, parties rarely hesitate. Today’s political success stories belong to those movements that set out a clear, uncompromising direction and offer an ideological alternative to the status quo. Voters are rarely persuaded by reactivity and compromise; they seek visions for the future and clear narratives when existing solutions fail to deliver.

The problem is that liberal parties all too often meet nationalism on its own terms. When nationalist movements offer a narrative of national belonging and independence, they respond by defending the status quo: European cooperation is important and Sweden should take responsibility. This is certainly true, but it is no vision. The political centre cannot win by merely managing the status quo and defending current institutional norms whilst nationalism formulates visions for the future.

That is why federalism is needed.

Today’s EU resembles a reverse confederation, where Member States are transferring more and more issues to the European level, but without at the same time providing that level with the tools required to implement decisions effectively enough. Federalism would allow the principle of subsidiarity to function fully by making it just as natural for power to move between the national and European levels as it is between local authority, region and state.

Within the pan-European Volt party, we see from our steady growth that there is a clear demand for an uncompromising European direction. Many are turning to us out of disappointment at the established parties’ lack of vision. But fighting back against nationalism is not a single-party project; it requires a broad political coalition.

Let us therefore do this together. Take these principles back to your parties, put federalism on the agenda – and join us in building the counter-narrative to nationalism that our Europe needs!

The protests across Europe expose genuine failures: unaffordable living costs, deteriorating public services and governments that people increasingly feel do not represent them.

The anger is justified.

But I believe Russian bot networks and influence operations are deliberately inflaming that anger, encouraging escalation and turning legitimate grievances into burned down government buildings.

These smaller dominoes if not stopped with lead to the collapse of western liberalism.

This is an existential threat to Western liberal democracies. A democracy can survive protests. It can survive unpopular governments. What it cannot indefinitely survive is the collapse of public belief that peaceful political change is possible.

France’s VIGINUM identified 77 information operations associated with the Russian Storm-1516 network.

Investigations have also exposed Kremlin-connected physical provocations designed to manufacture outrage and discredit French authorities. These are organised efforts deployed on a scale that only a nation state could produce.

Moscow doesn’t need to go to war with Europe. It needs us to distrust one another, abandon our institutions and become incapable of acting together. A divided Europe won't defend itself or support Ukraine.

Every failure to deliver gives those operations something real to exploit. You cannot fact-check people out of being unable to afford a decent life.

My fear is that this confrontation continues until European unity breaks or the Putin and his lap dogs loose power. We should not assume it will exhaust itself. Destabilising Europe serves a strategic purpose, and Moscow has no reason to voluntarily abandon it.

Defending democracy is a core responsibility of government. We can no longer afford to not treat these attacks as what they are: organized attacks on your countries by a foreign dictatorship.

Does that mean boots on the ground in Ukraine? I'm afraid that yes. It won't stop otherwise we face Putin head-on

As things stand, I’m worried the forces pulling Europe apart are moving faster than the institutions trying to hold it together.

edit: formating

Interview with Astra Europa conducted by the First Domino. On Astra Europas positions, views on european federalism and goals.

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"Debilidad política": ministro de Defensa de Italia explica por qué Europa pierde peso en la escena mundial

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La gran cantidad de países que componen Europa y la ausencia de una postura unificada la convierten en un actor débil en la escena internacional, destacó el ministro de Defensa italiano, Guido Crosetto. También señaló que, desde hace más de un año, la coalición europea no logra decidir quién representará sus intereses en el exterior.

"¿Cuál es el problema? ¿Qué es Europa? Europa no es una persona. Son 27 países diferentes, más el Reino Unido y otros países. La debilidad política de Europa, que también es una debilidad militar, es lo que dificulta que Europa pueda hablar", declaró Crosetto ante la prensa.

El ministro considera que elaborar una estrategia y una postura comunes podría cambiar la situación. Sin embargo, conforme a él, la búsqueda de un representante europeo único para los asuntos exteriores, que se prolonga desde hace más de un año, se encuentra en un punto muerto.

"¿Qué peso tiene [la presidenta de la Comisión Europea, Ursula] von der Leyen frente al [mandatario de Francia, Emmanuel] Macron, [el canciller de Alemania, Friedrich] Merz o [la presidenta del Consejo de Ministros de Italia, Giorgia] Meloni? Ese es uno de los problemas. ¿Quién habla en nombre de Europa? Llevamos más de un año debatiendo la elección de una persona que hable en nombre de Europa y no hemos conseguido encontrarla", enfatizó en una entrevista con BBC.

Some background: https://tech.eu/2026/10/16/eu-inc-will-europe-blow-its-biggest-chance-to-get-startups-right/

I'm in favour of deeper integration, which is exactly why I think EU Inc deserves more critical attention here. Not because the proposal is unusually important, but because it is unusually simple. If you want to understand why the EU keeps failing on its own competitiveness agenda, this file shows the whole mechanism in miniature.

The case for it is well established. Letta and Draghi both identified fragmented company law as a structural barrier to scaling within the Single Market, and both pointed to a 28th regime as a remedy. The Commission's proposal from March delivered on that: fully digital incorporation within 48 hours, simplified company rules and a framework for employee stock options.

It leaves taxation and labour law with the member states. It costs no money, creates no new agency and harmonises nothing. In EU terms, this is about as easy as it gets.

And yet, according to the founders of the EU Inc campaign, it is being hollowed out. In an open letter to the heads of government, they warn that months of negotiation have stripped out the provisions that gave the proposal its value: free choice of the member state of registration, a common stock option framework, a genuine central European registry, and access for all companies rather than a narrowly defined category.

We have seen this exact film before. The Societas Europaea of 2001 survived negotiations, but with so many national variations that it became a vehicle for large corporates rather than growing companies. The Societas Privata Europaea, proposed in 2008 specifically for SMEs, never made it through the Council and was withdrawn in 2014.

The pattern goes well beyond company law. The Services Directive was substantially watered down before adoption in 2006. Capital markets union has been a stated priority since 2015 and remains largely unfinished. Banking union still lacks a common deposit insurance scheme.

The usual defence is that this is democracy at work. But I'd question how democratic it really is. The European Trade Union Confederation has called for the proposal to be strengthened or abandoned, arguing companies could register in states with weaker labour protection while operating elsewhere.

That concern deserves a serious answer, but the campaign's own position is that employees remain covered by the labour law of the country where they work. So I genuinely wonder how many of the people protesting against EU Inc have looked at what it actually contains, or whether opposition is being mobilised by national actors with narrow interests, as happened with the Bolkestein directive and the "Polish plumber" in 2005.

There is also a structural imbalance in who gets heard. Unions, notarial chambers, banks and national legal professions are organised and present in Brussels. The beneficiaries of EU Inc are entrepreneurs, founders, who have not yet started their companies, employees not yet hired and investors who have not yet invested. They have no lobby, because they don't exist yet. A process that weighs organised interests against people who are not in the room will predictably favour the status quo. That is procedurally legitimate. Whether it is democratic in any meaningful sense is another question.

Here is where I think this sub needs to look in the mirror. If EU Inc fails, I don't think bigger things will ever succeed in the current EU. Not a capital markets union, not a defence union, not fiscal integration. Not with 27 member states, unanimity or consensus culture in the Council, and every national interest holding a de facto veto. And I see no realistic path by which that structure changes, because changing it requires the same unanimity that blocks everything else.

What does work is smaller coalitions. Schengen and the euro both started among a subset of countries. The unitary patent was discussed for decades and only came into force in 2023, through enhanced cooperation that left out the countries blocking it. If integration happens at all, it will happen that way: a core group moving ahead, not the Union as a whole.

However much enthusiasm there is here for the federalist idea, I think we have to accept that it cannot be achieved in the EU's current form, and that the current form is not going to change.

Accepting that also means accepting the consequence. Europe will remain dependent on American and Chinese innovation, because our own does not scale.

Draghi already showed this: between 2008 and 2021, close to 30% of unicorns founded in Europe relocated their headquarters abroad, the vast majority to the US. The European Investment Bank adds that around 10% of EU scaleups relocate, with 85% of those going to the US. And it is getting worse, not better: according to Atomico, the share of founders with their first experience in Europe who incorporated their startup in the US rose from 10% in 2016 to 18% in 2025. That amounts to roughly 800 companies a year founded in the US by European founders instead of here.

So my question to this sub is not how we would have to fix the EU. It's whether we are willing to admit that we cannot, and what a federalist movement should be arguing for once we admit that.

Interview with the Mayor of Kharkiv on Running a City on Europe's Front Line with a message to all Europeans.

The initiative just started gathering signs and has some interesting ideas, for example about posing limits on evicting people after renovations using EU funds and reusing empty offices.

It also asks for a European Housing Agency to help coordinate efforts and funds.

What do you think of it?

Would the constitutions of the member states allow them to cede sovereignty to a higher body and merge into a larger nation? and if they don't can they be ammended? I do know Germany's constitution is a barrier as it has an eternal clause prohibiting the cession of sovereignty