Aetolians, Europeans and Canadians: A Comparative analysis of federations

In the present essay we begin with a short presentation of the Aetolian proto-federation and compare its structure and institutions with two modern ones, that of Canada and that of the European Union. We will then make an evaluation of the three federations according to two sets of criteria. a) Democratisation, which contains four sub-criteria: “isonomia” (equality in front of the law) “isokratia” (political equality), “isegoria” (equality to propose initiatives) and “isopoliteia” (single citizenship, the transfer of the political rights of a citizen of a state, when he moves to another within the federation) b) Cohesion, which comprises the following four sub-criteria : i) monetary union, ii) fiscal union and federal budget iii) federal regulation and the basic economic freedoms, of goods and services, capital and labour and iv) common external and defence policy. The results of the evaluation show that according to the criterion of democratisation, the Aetolian ranks first and the EU last, while according to cohesion, the Aetolian ranks first and the EU last, while according to cohesion, the Aetolian and Canadian rank as about equal while the EU again lags behind.