Confederation

Examples

Belgium

The Kingdom of Belgium is constitutionally a federal state composed of three Communities and three Regions. It evolved from a unitary state through successive state reforms beginning in 1970 and was formally designated a federal state in 1993. The federal state, the Communities and the Regions are legally on an equal footing within their respective areas of competence, rather than forming a general hierarchy in which federal law automatically takes precedence.

Belgium is nevertheless sometimes described in academic literature as an atypical or sui generis federation with some confederal characteristics. Constitutional scholar Patricia Popelier notes that Belgium is commonly described as a federal system with "confederal traits", particularly because of the extensive autonomy of its federated entities and the formal and informal veto mechanisms of the major language groups in federal decision-making. More recent scholarship likewise characterizes Belgium as an atypical, centrifugal federation with far-reaching autonomy for the Communities and Regions. In the traditional constitutional-law definition, however, a confederation consists of sovereign states joined in a treaty-based association, whereas Belgium's Communities and Regions are constituent entities of a single federal state.

Belgian fiscal federalism likewise does not establish a simple hierarchy in which the federal government dominates the federated entities. The OECD notes that the federal, regional and community governments are not legally subordinate to one another in budgetary policy. The Sixth State Reform increased the fiscal autonomy of the Regions, although public debt and deficits remain concentrated to a significant extent at the federal level.

Belgian politics is strongly segmented along linguistic lines. Most political parties operate primarily within one language community, and academic research describes Belgium as having a split party system; the PVDA/PTB is a partial exception to the absence of statewide parties. Belgium is also widely studied as a consociational democracy, in which power-sharing and minority-protection mechanisms have been used to accommodate linguistic divisions.

Canada

Canada is an unusually decentralized federal state, not a confederate association of sovereign states, the usual meaning of confederation in modern terms. In Canada, the word confederation has an additional unrelated meaning. "Confederation" refers to the process of (or the event of) establishing or joining the Canadian federal state.

In modern terminology, Canada is a federation, not a confederation. However, to contemporaries of the Constitution Act, 1867, confederation did not have the same connotation of a weakly-centralized federation. Canadian Confederation generally refers to the Constitution Act, 1867, which formed the Dominion of Canada from three of the colonies of British North America, and to the subsequent incorporation of other colonies and territories. Beginning on 1 July 1867, it was initially a self-governing dominion of the British Empire with a federal structure, whose government was led by Sir John A. Macdonald. The initial colonies involved were the Province of Canada (becoming Quebec from Canada East, formerly the colony of Lower Canada; and Ontario from Canada West, formerly the colony of Upper Canada), Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Later participants were Manitoba, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Alberta and Saskatchewan (the latter two created in 1905 as federated provinces from parts of the directly federally administered Northwest Territories, first transferred to the Dominion in 1869 and now possessing devolved governments as itself, Yukon and Nunavut), and finally Newfoundland (now Newfoundland and Labrador) in 1949. A Canadian judicial constitutional interpretation, Reference Re Secession of Quebec, and a subsequent federal law, set forth negotiating conditions for a Canadian province (though not a territory) to leave the Canadian federal state (addressed also by a related Quebec law). Importantly, negotiation would first need triggering by referendum and executing by constitutional amendment using a current amending mechanism of Canada's constitution—meaning that, while not legal under the current constitution, it is democratically feasible without resorting to extralegal means or international involvement.

European Union

The unique nature and the political sensitivities surrounding the European Union (EU) make it difficult to apply a common or legal classification to its structure. However, it bears some resemblance to both a confederation (or a "new" type of confederation) and a federation. The term supranational union has also been applied. The EU operates common economic policies with thousands of common laws, which enable a single economic market, a common customs territory, (mainly) open internal borders, and a common currency among most member-states. However, unlike a federation, the EU does not have exclusive powers over foreign affairs, defence, taxation, along with the immigration and transit of non-EU nationals. Furthermore, most EU laws, which have been developed by consensus between relevant national government ministers and then scrutinised and approved or rejected by the European Parliament, must be transposed into national law by national parliaments (in the case of directives). Most collective decisions by member states are taken by weighted majorities and blocking minorities typical of upper houses in federations. On the other hand, the absolute unanimity typical of intergovernmentalism is required only in respect to the Common Foreign and Security Policy, as well as in situations when ratification of a treaty or of a treaty amendment is required. Such a form may thus be described as a semi-intergovernmental confederation.

However, some academic observers more usually discuss the EU in the terms of it being a federation. As the international law professor Joseph H. H. Weiler (of the Hague Academy and New York University) wrote, "Europe has charted its own brand of constitutional federalism". Jean-Michel Josselin and Alain Marciano see the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg City as being a primary force behind the building of a federal legal order for the EU, with Josselin stating that a "complete shift from a confederation to a federation would have required to straight-forwardly replace the principality of the member states vis-à-vis the Union by that of the European citizens. As a consequence, both confederate and federate features coexist in the judicial landscape". Rutgers political science professor R. Daniel Kelemen said: "Those uncomfortable using the 'F' word in the EU context should feel free to refer to it as a quasi-federal or federal-like system. Nevertheless, the EU has the necessary attributes of a federal system. It is striking that while many scholars of the EU continue to resist analyzing it as a federation, most contemporary students of federalism view the EU as a federal system". Thomas Risse and Tanja A. Börzel claim that the "EU only lacks two significant features of a federation. First, the Member States remain the "masters" of the treaties, i.e., they have the exclusive power to amend or change the constitutive treaties of the EU. Second, the EU lacks a real "tax and spend" capacity, in other words, there is no fiscal federalism".

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the chairman of the body of experts commissioned to elaborate a constitutional charter for the European Union, was confronted with strong opposition from the United Kingdom towards including the words "federal" or "federation" in the unratified European Constitution and the word was replaced with either "Community" or "Union".

A majority of the Political Groups in the European Parliament, including the EPP, the S&D Group and Renew Europe, support a federal model for the European Union. The ECR Group argues for a reformed European Union along confederal lines. The Brothers of Italy party, led by Giorgia Meloni, campaigns for a confederal Europe. On her election as President of the ECR Party in September 2020 Meloni said, "Let us continue to fight together for a confederate Europe of free and sovereign states".

Indigenous confederations in North America

In the context of the history of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, a confederacy may refer to a semi-permanent political and military alliance consisting of multiple nations (or "tribes", "bands", or "villages"), which maintained their separate leadership. One of the most well-known is the Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois), but there were many others during different eras and locations across North America, such as the Wabanaki Confederacy, Western Confederacy, Tsenacommacah, Seven Nations of Canada, Pontiac's Confederacy, Pennacook Confederacy, Illinois Confederation, Tecumseh's Confederacy, Powhatan Confederacy, Muscogee Confederacy, Great Sioux Nation, Blackfoot Confederacy, Warm Springs Confederacy, Manahoac Confederacy, Iron Confederacy and Council of Three Fires.

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy, historically known as the Iroquois League or the League of Five (later Six) Nations, is the country of Native Americans (in what is now the United States) and First Nations (in what is now Canada) that consists of six nations: the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, the Seneca and the Tuscarora. The Six Nations have a representative government known as the Grand Council which is the oldest governmental institution still maintaining its original form in North America. Each clan from the five nations sends chiefs to act as representatives and make decisions for the whole confederation. It has been operating since its foundation in 1142 despite limited international recognition today.

Indigenous confederations in South America

Several of the Pre-Columbian cultures of Colombia, such as the Muisca and Tairona were composed of loose confederations. The Muisca form of government consisted of two different rulers that governed a region in the central Andean highlands in present-day Colombia. The Hoa ruled the northern section of the confederation, while the Zipa ruled the southern portion.

The Andean civilizations consisted of loose confederations, such as the Aymara kingdoms and the Diaguita, with the former being composed of distinct diarchies.

Serbia and Montenegro

In 2003, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was transformed into the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, a confederation of the Republic of Montenegro and the Republic of Serbia. The state was constituted as a loose political union, but formally functioned as a sovereign subject of international law, and member of the United Nations. As a confederation, the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro had very few shared functions, such as defense, foreign affairs and a weak common president, cabinet and parliament.

The two constituent republics functioned separately throughout the period of its short existence, and they continued to operate under separate economic policies and to use separate currencies (the euro was and still is the only legal tender in Montenegro, and the dinar was and still is the legal tender in Serbia). On 21 May 2006, the Montenegrin independence referendum was held. The final official results indicated on 31 May that 55.5% of voters voted in favor of independence. The confederation effectively came to an end after Montenegro's formal declaration of independence on 3 June 2006 and Serbia's formal declaration of independence on 5 June.

Switzerland

Switzerland, officially known as the Swiss Confederation, is an example of a modern country that traditionally refers to itself as a confederation because the official (and traditional) name of Switzerland in German (the majority language of the Swiss) is Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft (literally "Swiss Comradeship by Oath"), an expression which was translated into the Latin Confoederatio Helvetica (Helvetic Confederation). It had been a confederacy since its inception in 1291 as the Old Swiss Confederacy, which was originally created as an alliance among the valley communities of the central Alps, until it became a federation in 1848 but it retains the name of Confederacy for reasons of historical tradition. The confederacy facilitated management of common interests (such as freedom from external domination especially from the Habsburg Empire, the development of republican institutions in a Europe dominated by monarchies and free trade), and it ensured peace between the different cultural entities of the area.

After the Sonderbund War of 1847, when some of the Catholic cantons of Switzerland attempted to set up a separate union (Sonderbund in German) against the Protestant majority, a vote was held and the majority of the cantons approved the new Federal Constitution which changed the political system to one of a federation.

Union State of Russia and Belarus

In 1999, Russia and Belarus signed a treaty to form a confederation, which came into force on 26 January 2000. Although it was given the name Union State and was initially intended to create federation, it remains a confederation of an uncompleted nature. Its existence has been seen as an indication of Russia's political and economic support for the government of Alexander Lukashenko.

The Union State was created with the objective of co-ordinating common action on economic integration and foreign affairs. However, many of the treaty's provisions have not yet been implemented. Consequently, The Times, in 2020, described it as "a mostly unimplemented confederation".

Alliance of Sahel States

On July 6, 2024, at the end of the first summit of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), the final communiqué announced the creation of a confederation of the three countries of the AES, namely Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. All three countries were members of ECOWAS, before their memberships were suspended after a successive string of military coups. Subsequently, the countries withdrew from ECOWAS and formed the AES.

Historical confederations

Historical confederations (especially those predating the 20th century) may not fit the current definition of a confederation, may be proclaimed as a federation but be confederal (or the reverse), and may not show any qualities that 21st-century political scientists might classify as those of a confederation.

List

Some have more the characteristics of a personal union, but appear here because of their self-styling as a "confederation":

• ^a Confederated personal union.
• ^b De facto confederation.