meta-democracy.org

Europe of the Regions — an interactive map of ~190 practical regions: cultural-economic units between the nation-state and the EU. It shows one way to resolve tensions — for example between Catalonia and Madrid — and to equalize the prominence of Europe's different members. This could unfold as an organic evolution: if nation-states gradually weaken relative to Europe as a whole and to their regions and municipalities, the regional layer is ready to carry more democratic weight. The point isn't the nation-state redrawn at a smaller scale: each region should combine cultural unity with real functional self-governance — the way Germany already works as several centers of gravity (Berlin, Munich, Cologne/the Ruhr) rather than one — instead of a tiny state like Slovenia sitting, formally equal but practically outweighed, next to a state many times its size. That only works alongside a strong European identity of its own, so nothing simply gets renegotiated through national leaders again.