European Confederacy

The European Confederacy, built upon the foundations of unity set by the former European Union, is a 200 year old spacefaring power composed of numerous former nationalities in Europe. They control most of the European continent, portions of Mars, and dozens of exoplanets outside of Sol. However, they are often overshadowed by the sheer might of the United States. The two countries have engaged in limited proxy wars several times and are still very hostile to one another.

Structure

While the confederacy began and officially considers itself a confederation between sovereign states (hence the name), the European Confederacy actually functions as a Federation leaning towards a unitary state. Power is divided between the subnational states and the national government. The state governments have some powers and serve as the base unit for determining representation, but most of the responsibilities of government are concentrated at the Federal level. It enacts laws, runs the confederacy's colonies, deploys military resources, and makes court decisions with almost no input from the individual states.
The average citizen has very little actual influence and say in how the national government is run, though the government is often bound to make decisions based on public opinion polls, causing its detractors to call it "an unholy hybrid of mob rule and authoritarianism". However, its supporters allege that this allows the government to enforce the will of the people without being vulnerable to special interest groups and money in politics.

Public Agenda

The European Confederacy, lending to its fairly unique organization structure, isn't driven by official political parties like most other countries (they exist, but mostly on the subnational level, and lack actual political power). However, the government is divided into unofficial ideological factions that roughly correlate with differences in public opinion. Unlike the US, which is more split, the EC heavily leans towards the Left-wing and almost exclusively favors left-wing policies. The Parliament is mostly controlled by socialist elements, with some more moderate and right-wing personnel that have less power. While the EC is criticised for its seemingly authoritarian nature, in its current state the socialist policies it has enacted actually represent a dramatic shift towards liberalism: at times the EC has been controlled by outright Communists, and once slid into right-wing fascism.

History

Pre-Confederate Europe

The Iron Curtain and Foundations of Unity: 1946-2052

After the second World War, Europe was divided in two: the Capitalist NATO nations and the Communist Soviet Bloc. Caught between two nuclear superpowers, the US and Russia, European nations lived in fear with the knowledge that if a nuclear exchange occurred they would be targets by association. Meanwhile, shocked by the horror and violence that had occurred, the former colonial powers gradually relinquished hold on many of their international territories and decreased the size of their militaries. Many people wanted to make sure another war between the European nations could never occur.
This belief in part led to the creation of the European Confederacy, the EU. The EU originated as an economic alliance between some of the countries in Europe and grew to encompass a number of areas, including immigration, lawmaking, and even a unified military. It created a zone that exclusively used the Euro as currency and strived to foster cooperation between nations once considered enemies. By the 21st century, some experts believed that Europe was going to become the next global superpower.
However, the EU did have its fair share of issues. Many within had problems with the fact that the EU was mostly unaccountable to the average citizen and that a few countries seemed to dominate their decision making. In the 2010 and 2020s, a flood of immigration from the middle east and a few prominent successions also posed a threat. Some individual nations, such as Greece and France, also experienced significant economic and political turmoil during this period. They also lacked as much commitment to their space program as some of their neighbors, setting them up to remain behind when the Space Age began. This set up the EU and later EC to be technologically behind their rivals for the next century.

The European Unification

Collapse and conflict: 2062- 2078

By 2062, Europe was in a bad position. The EU was prosperous and encompassed some of the largest economies per capita in the world, but their economic prosperity was showing signs of instability. Changes in EU law, decades of immigration from outside cultures, and internal corruption had begun to erode the foundations that allowed these economic conditions to flourish. Many populists were upset with their government's seeming disregard for the working class in favor of the elite and international corporations.
At the same time, EU citizens were becoming more divided and disillusioned with the system. Meanwhile, the EU's stance on the Space Age was equally frustrating. Citizens had watched during the recent decades as the US, China, and India became the preeminent global powers, directly as a result of their ability to land on the moon and Mars, while Europe slowly fell further and further behind. The EU governments were more interested in pursuing environmental policy and domestic decisions: they (wrongly) dismissed space as a mere novelty.
These issues sparked controversy and division. Notably, these divisions were mostly between classes, religions, and political groups rather than between countries. Historians now recognise that the EU had both succeeded and failed: the institution itself was beginning to fall apart, but it had firmly entrenched the idea of a united Europe in the minds of the people.
In 2062 the growing problems and frustrations came to a head when a sudden collapse of the Euro, a financial panic not seen on such scale since the Great Depression, threw the EU into chaos. This brought the entire global economy almost to a screeching halt and sent most of Europe spiralling downwards. Riots and protest, eventually followed by armed conflict, engulfed the continent as the politically-ignored sections of society challenged the established political elite. Nationalist groups as well as multinational insurrections threw the entire region into a decade of urban conflicts and even all out civil war in some regions. Eventually, while the insurrections were defeated, to prevent governmental collapse many of their suggested policies were implemented, the political establishment was democratically removed, and the EU was dissolved in favor of a new government that seeked to combine Europe into one entity: the European Confederacy.

Broken Democracy: 2078-2194

Revise and expand this section into phases; The Authoritarian Collapse, WW3, The Diaspora, The First and Second Colonial Wars
From the beginning, the European Confederacy had signs that it would someday become a regime. It started as a traditional democracy like the nations that founded it, with significant input from the general population and strong protections for individual rights. However, these protections were not set in stone and over time were eroded by new laws that replaced them. Within fifty years the EC was rapidly approaching authoritarianism, and few within the country were interested in stopping it. After the destruction and chaos that had engulfed the EU's final days, many people were okay with what they saw as a strong but benevolent government enforcing the will of the people.
However, this quickly caused conflicts with those groups that weren't part of the majority and brought allegations of civil rights abuses from other countries. When the majority set their sights on sore subjects such as Religion, these conflicts became violent. Thousands of people opposed to the new regime began to flee the country while others took up arms in an effort to fight back. Small insurgency campaigns and mass arrests were common. These crackdowns were only limited by threats from foreign powers.

Demography and Population

As of their last census, the European Confederacy has a population of 12 Billion people across their dozens of star systems and worlds. They are mostly urbanized communities that rely on imports from their colonies to sustain themselves. The largest portion of their population, about 862 Million people, live in Europe, with other portions of their population in Mars and exoplanets outside the solar system. They lost a lot of people during the second colonial war because a number of their colonies attempted to remain independent from their control.

Territories

The European Confederacy controls a number of former Countries that occupy much of the the European continent. These include: France, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Portugal, Belarus, Cyprus, Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, Turkey, Bosnia, Moldova, Albania, Greece, Luxemburg, and the Netherlands. Notably, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland, and Spain are not part of the EC, while Denmark, Estonia, and Latvia are former EC countries that were captured by the Nordic Commonwealth during the Colonial Wars.

Military

The European Confederacy's military is composed of a mere three organizations: the Army, Navy, and ESA COM, a military arm expanded from the structure of the European Space Agency. Like most spacefaring powers, ESACOM is the most significant branch in operation. They operate their own line of military vessels (mostly escort craft) that help to defend their territories from foreign interference. They are often (begrudgingly) working alongside the USSF to fight the Ceti and Centauri, who don't exactly recognise human nationalities.

Religion

While Europe has a history of Religion, with Christianity dominating the region for centuries and Islamic faiths surging in the beginning of the 21st, the European Confederacy is currently an officially atheist nation with some Islam and almost no other faiths. Beginning in the 21st century, some european countries began enacting policies that made public religious practice difficult and started tightening regulations on religion in general. In the beginning of the 22nd century, the EC became majority atheist, like many nations at the time. However, unlike other atheist nations like Britain or the Nordic Commonwealth nations, the EC brand of atheism became very authoritarian about their disdain for religion.
The government came to believe that religions had little place in civil society and hindered scientific progress, so they began to crack down harder on all faiths. These decisions were met by hostility, anger, and even violence by the minority, which only prompted the EC to hit religion harder. Most religious individuals during the 22nd century were forced to renounce their faiths, killed in fighting, or fled to neighboring countries like the US, Britain, and Italy. This authoritarian flavor of Atheism was only checked when the United States threatened to declare war on the EC for their actions. In the most recent half century, this authoritarian atheism has died out and been replaced by a more reasonable form of it.

United We Stand

Founding Date

May 21st, 2078

Type

Geopolitical, Country

Capital

Brussels, Belgium

Alternative Names

European Union, United States of Europe, Socialist-Europe, Euro-state, Euro-Fascists (by detractors)

Demonym

Confederates (also, many go by their individual subnationalities)

Government System

Electocracy

Power Structure

Federation

Economic System

Mixed economy

Currency

The Euro

Legislative Body

Confederate Parliament

Judicial Body

High Judicial court

Official State Religion

Atheism

Location

Sol

Neighboring Nations

• United States of North America