An international report calls for a radical reform of the EU: end of supranational power and return to cooperation among nations

The European Union is facing an unprecedented legitimacy crisis. What was originally created as a tool to facilitate trade and ensure peace among sovereign nations has, over the decades, transformed into an overgrown supranational structure that legislates on highly sensitive areas such as education, family, immigration, and public morality—without the European peoples having real decision-making power. Far from fostering unity, Brussels’ bureaucratic centralism has fueled discontent, detachment, and resistance among many member states.

In response to this federalist and ideologically-driven drift, a report by the think tanks Ordo Iuris (Poland) and Mathias Corvinus Collegium (Hungary) proposes an alternative: replacing the current European Union with a European Community of Nations (ECN), based on voluntary cooperation, institutional flexibility, and strict respect for national sovereignty.

In the report, Rodrigo Ballester, Director of the Center for European Studies at MCC in Budapest, and researcher Damille Devenyi propose eliminating the principle of automatic primacy of EU law, so that no European regulation could override a national constitution. This would affirm the central role of each country’s legal order in the face of Brussels’ uniform impositions.

The document also suggests turning the European Commission into a technical body, stripped of its legislative initiative and enforcement powers. The aim is to drastically reduce its political weight, returning competences to the national level.

The report highlights the need to reform the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), limiting its authority and preventing interference in national judicial systems. According to the authors, the CJEU has been used to pressure legitimate governments that diverge from the ideological guidelines dictated by the center.

One of the boldest measures proposed is the creation of a “shield for national competences”, which would protect areas such as migration policy, family, public morality, and education from any European interference. This protection would have institutional status and be legally binding.

Finally, the report advocates replacing the qualified majority voting system with a requirement for unanimity in decision-making. This would prevent any state from being forced to adopt policies against its will. Under the new institutional framework, the European Council would become the highest authority, replacing the current structure dominated by the Commission and Parliament.

The report also proposes a change in name: the European Union would be renamed the European Community of Nations, reflecting a model of cooperation among free and equal states, without coercive structures or imposed ideologies from above.

This initiative responds to a growing concern among European citizens: the need to reclaim national control, halt the advance of federalism, and restore sovereignty as the foundation of any true democracy.