Federalisation of current EU

This first step is a completion of the current EU. Its main purpose is to make the EU a more democratic 'federation of nation states'.

Senate
This new federation will introduce a senate in which each member state is represented by 5 senators which will be elected by their national parliaments. When a new national parliament is elected by the people, the newly elected parliamentarians will elect the senators that are to represent them in the federation.

Any new federal laws will have to get a majority in both the senate and the parliament. Because smaller states have as much say as bigger states, this senate will make sure that smaller states don’t feel overpowered by bigger states.

Parliament
The parliament will be given the right of initiative. The parliament will also be able to hold votes of no confidence, this will enable them to vote a commissioner out of office.

President
This federation will have a directly elected president. This president is responsible for forming and leading the European Commission. He will be elected at the same time a new parliament is elected(Every 5 years).

Commission
The European Commission will act more like a normal government. The president of the commission will be free to hire anyone as commissioner, not just the ones nominated by the member states. There no longer will be a requirement to have one commissioner per member state.

Budget
The commission and its activities will be funded by new direct taxes, a portion of VAT incomes would make sense.

Defense
The new federation will form its own army to defend its territory. Member states can keep their own armies. The new federation will be part of NATO, but not as replacement of all member states within NATO, instead it would have its own seat in the NATO council. At the same time a program to bring armies of member states closer together will be started. When a member state needs to replace a certain piece of equipment they will have to choose the piece that is currently being used by the federation army or whatever the federation army plans on using in the near future. This way armies will slowly become more alike.