Summary:
- Ordo Iuris and Mathias Corvinus Collegium propose reforms to the European Union to restore national sovereignty and individual freedoms.
- The report offers two scenarios: one based on reforms to EU Treaties, the other on dissolving the EU and restarting cooperation from scratch.
- Key principles include national sovereignty, intergovernmental cooperation, and subsidiarity.
- The report critiques the EU’s growing bureaucracy, undermining national sovereignty, and the imposition of progressive ideologies.
Introduction:
On March 11, 2025, two European think tanks, the Polish Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture and the Hungarian Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), presented a newly published report at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. The report proposes a reform of the European Union aimed at protecting the individual freedom of citizens in EU Member States, the democratic principles, accountability of governing institutions, and the sovereignty of EU Member States. This is the first positive proposal for comprehensive changes to the structure and functioning of the European Union, which could be considered an alternative to the growing push by European bureaucratic elites toward centralization of power in the EU.
The report, titled “The Great Reset: Restoring Member State Sovereignty in the European Union,” constitutes a counterproposal to the European Parliament resolution of November 22, 2023, which calls for 267 changes to the European Treaties. If implemented, this resolution would transform the EU into a centralized superstate, remove decision-making further from citizens, and deprive EU countries of the right to self-determination.
The counter-project drafted by Ordo Iuris and the MCC acknowledges, too, the urgent need for radical change in the functioning of the European Union. However, it provides a different diagnosis of the main flaws of the current model and suggests an alternative resolution to the issues afflicting Europe, in contrast to the views of EU bureaucrats.
Background
Between 2021 and 2022, the European Commission conducted a carefully orchestrated consultation process known as the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFE), which resulted in a report presented to the Presidents of the European Parliament, the European Council, and the European Commission on May 9, 2022. In the following step, the EU Parliament passed a resolution calling for changes to the Treaties, which was adopted by the EU Council by the end of 2023. These proposed changes were thoroughly analyzed and summarized in a report prepared by Ordo Iuris in early 2024. The Ordo Iuris report clearly demonstrated that the proposed changes would lead toward the creation of a centralized European superstate, exacerbating the challenges faced by European nations and the EU as a whole rather than addressing them. At the time, there were no alternative proposals put forward to improve the EU’s efficiency while safeguarding individual liberties and national sovereignty.
In September 2024, Ordo Iuris, in partnership with the Heritage Foundation from the U.S., organized a conference in Warsaw to discuss the potential consequences of the proposed EU Treaty changes on transatlantic relations. Participants from Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States expressed their deep concerns about the direction of the proposed changes. The European participants also discussed steps to inform citizens about these plans, avert threats to freedom, and repair the European Union to restore its original efficiency and effectiveness. This conference became the catalyst for Ordo Iuris and Mathias Corvinus Collegium to develop a first draft counterproposal to the EU bureaucrats’ proposed changes aiming at developing, together with partners from other EU countries, a comprehensive plan to reform the European Union in line with the intentions of the founding fathers.
The “Great Reset” report presents a diagnosis of the EU’s current issues and offers two possible scenarios for addressing them according to the same fundamental principles. The first scenario proposes 23 changes to the EU’s current structures, while the second scenario suggests dissolving the existing EU and restarting European cooperation from scratch. The report was first presented on March 11 at a conference at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., followed by another presentation on March 18 at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium in Budapest. Additional presentations are scheduled for Warsaw on April 8 and later in Brussels, the EU’s capital.
The Diagnosis
When the first European economic communities were established, Europe was recovering from a devastating war that had laid waste to large portions of the continent. Despite this, the region had vibrant economies and was enjoying consistent economic growth. In 1980, Europe accounted for almost 30% of global GDP, which then dropped to around 23% by 2000 and to 15% in 2019. Meanwhile, the Lisbon Strategies of 2000 and 2010, which aimed to build “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world,” failed to prevent Europe from falling behind the United States and China. This decline has been accompanied by the growing “harmonization” of EU policies, increased centralization of decision-making, and rampant growth of bureaucracy, leading to an increase in regulatory burdens.
The authors point out that the current EU structure is characterized by:
- a deficit of democracy, with unelected bureaucrats wielding enormous and growing power;
- the undermining of national sovereignty by stripping Member States of their competences, in contravention of EU Treaties, with particular concern regarding the European Commission and the Court of Justice of the European Union;
- the threat to civil liberties and the imposition of progressive ideologies;
- the promotion of an abusive notion of “European Values” in an attempt to replace the national identities of Europeans with a new, artificial “European identity”;
- the undermining of Europe’s economic, social, physical, and military security through policies dictated by ideological considerations, particularly in the area of migration;
- the imposition of excessive, unnecessary regulations that stifle growth, kill entrepreneurial spirit, and destroy competitiveness.
The EU Commission and the European Parliament’s response to these issues is to propose more of the same destructive policies. Instead, the Ordo Iuris and Mathias Corvinus Collegium Report calls for a radical shift to return Europe to the conditions that allowed it to compete successfully on the global stage. Both scenarios in their report are based on the adoption and strict adherence to the following principles:
- National sovereignty – Nation states, not a supranational union, retain sovereignty as the natural organizational units of society.
- Plurality of cooperating communities – Nation states cooperate in areas that reflect their interests and refrain from cooperation in areas that do not.
- Voluntary and revocable cooperation – Member states retain the freedom to join and withdraw from any area of cooperation, except for a minimum set of commitments (to be determined).
- Intergovernmental cooperation – Member state governments retain power, with decisions made unanimously by officials holding democratic mandates.
- Conferral of competences – Supranational bodies only have competences expressly delegated to them.
- Subsidiarity – Competences remain with lower levels of authority unless it is demonstrated that they are better achieved at a higher level.
The Recipe for Reform
The authors propose two alternative scenarios for EU reform. The first is based on introducing amendments to the EU Treaties that implement 23 proposals aimed at reassessing and readjusting executive, legislative, and judicial competencies while strengthening the position of national states, constitutions, and governments. If this reform is deemed unfeasible due to time, cost, or resistance, the second scenario suggests dissolving the EU and restarting cooperation among European states on a voluntary basis, following the principles guiding the proposed reforms.
The first of the 23 proposals is to change the name of the European Union to the European Community of Nations, reflecting the shift of power from Brussels back to the Member States. The following proposals institutionalize the safeguarding of state sovereignty, increase the flexibility of cooperation, and readjust the division of competencies between national and Community levels and reinforce the division of powers between executive, legislative and judicial branches. Proposals also include strengthening the unanimity rule, establishing a “national competencies shield” in the Treaties, introducing the primacy of national constitutions over EU law, reducing the roles of central EU bodies, and auditing the EU’s budget and publicly funded projects to ensure integrity and accountability.
Reactions to the Report
Political and bureaucratic proponents of further EU centralization have avoided addressing the issues raised or the substance of the proposals. Mainstream media in most EU countries (with the exception of Poland and Hungary, where the report originated) tends to ignore the report, hoping to dismiss it through silence. However, some left-leaning media have strongly reacted, warning that the initiative could destroy the EU in its current form, and some more conservative or sovereigntist media have published information about these new proposals in several EU countries as well as in the United States. On the other hand, many politicians concerned about the potential loss of self-determination for their states welcome the report as an important tool in broadening the discussion on the future of Europe. Those worried about the economic and political weakening of Europe share the report’s concerns and are open to discussing how to prevent the looming economic and demographic catastrophe.
The Importance of the Report in Resisting Global Governance
The EU is a microcosm of global trends. The process of European integration and the centralization of the EU is a case study for what is happening globally. The creation of the European Economic Community in 1957 began a gradual process of creating a European bureaucratic and political class, which was accelerated by the Maastricht Treaty (1993) and the Lisbon Treaty (2007). This class acts in the interest of a supranational body, which is giving a justification for its power and wealth, and is often disconnected from the values and interests of European citizens. It develops its own culture and terminology and, as it controls to a large extent the political and legal processes taking place in Europe and determines the direction of development of the European Union, it starts replacing the values, terminology, and culture of the European citizens.
As a result, the agreements that were used as the basis for the creation of the European Union are now interpreted differently than they were understood at the time of signing. The values that are not accepted by the general population are enforced by laws and regulations. The dissatisfaction of the population is controlled by the introduction of monitoring, censoring, and penalizing public opinions. Resistance to these actions is being interpreted as one of the newly invented crimes of hate speech or hate crimes, consisting of hurting the subjective feelings of another person. These crimes can seemingly only be committed by members of the suppressed majority, and the determination of whether there is a criminal level of emotion (hate) attached to the speech will be made by those who object to what the representatives of the suppressed majority say. The resistance of free citizens in most countries around the world has caused an attempt to limit civil liberties. As the resistance grows, attempts to limit individual freedoms are accelerating and gaining strength.
The transnational and globalist bureaucratic and political elite constitutes a clear minority among the populations of their countries. Therefore, it is necessary to redefine the meaning of the term democracy as a concept that enjoys the support of the majority. Democracy is now to be understood not as a system that ensures the execution of the will of the majority. Democracy is being defined as a system that protects and promotes the totality of democratic institutions and the “rule of law.”
This kind of shift in the meaning of words, as well as in organizational goals and objectives, is occurring not only within the European Union but is also commonplace in other supranational organizations, such as the United Nations — and from there, it is trickling down to individual countries. It is performed gradually, by stealth, and without consulting or asking for the consent of the general population. In this way, the term “reproductive health and rights” has assumed the meaning of a non-existent right to abortion, “health education” has assumed the meaning of sexual indoctrination, and “orderly migration” has assumed the meaning of a right to organized migration
Such attempts at limiting freedom are, or soon will be, commonplace around the world. For reasons ranging from the alleged need to save the planet, protect the climate, protect minorities, prevent disease, and many others, our freedom is being restricted in the economic, political, religious, cultural, judicial, medical, alimentary, environmental, and demographic spheres. The responses to these threats should be provided in each of these spheres, and they should be coordinated.
The attacks on freedom are conducted at all levels of human organization, starting from the global level (United Nations and WHO), regional level (European Union), national level, and even municipal level (as evidenced by, e.g., C40 mayors fighting against global warming). The responses to these threats should be provided at each of these levels, and they should be coordinated.
The report released by the Ordo Iuris Institute and the Mathias Corvinus Collegium could serve as a model for formulating an alternative to the globalists’ plan to gain control over the totality of governance processes at all levels around the world.
We are all called to stand up for our personal and national freedoms now.
The time we have left to defend them is short!