What do you mean re breaking up the EU? The model I'm outlining seems (to me at least) very close to a regional structuring, which is commonly used in one form or another in every country in Europe already (except for the really small ones).

Is Germany considered broken into pieces because the Laender have some independence? Even France has regional level structures, it is not just a hundred different departments, wouldn't you say?

You have an excellent point about the issue of superpower status. That's something the people of Europe as a whole need to sort out. I myself (as a frenchman) am not sure what direction I'd like to see, but I do believe that the world is not going to wait until organizational issues can be settled. And unfortunately the old Roman dictum si vis pacem, para bellum appears to still be valid. Europe does not have the kind of natural geographical protections that Switzerland enjoys.

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