Is Europe Moving Towards a Democratic Federation?

The goal of this article is to answer the question if the European Union may, in the coming years, see reforms towards a democratic federation. At the beginning there is a scientific discussion about the traits of a federation in comparison with a confederation, as well as a technocratic (executive) federation to a lesser degree. What follows is a diagnosis of the current system of the European Union, which can be considered a hybrid in that it contains the traits of different systems. Next, the role of the main federal institution of the EU, that is the European Parliament, is assessed together with recent proposals for further reforms towards the federation. In the conclusions a projection of the key changes in the EU is presented, with a focus on evaluating the probability of a rise of a democratic federation.