Proximity Politics

Decisions belong closest to whoever actually feels their impact. That's the default. Moving a decision up to a higher, more distant level needs a real reason, not just habit.

This is the same idea Switzerland has built its whole system around: communes handle what communes can handle, cantons step in only when a commune genuinely can't, and the federal level steps in only when the cantons can't. Nothing gets pulled upward just because it's tidier that way.

This isn't only about borders, although border regions are the clearest example, since the people living there deal with real pressure every day and should have real say in how it's handled. The same logic should run through energy decisions, local infrastructure, culture, and how the EU itself is built, all the way down to how authority works inside a single institution or a single command structure. It's a principle that repeats at every scale, not a one-time fix for one problem.

Note the difference between this star and the audit entry that tracks the same term. Here it is a principle we are arguing for. There it is a doctrine we are watching arrive by accumulated exception, unannounced and unexamined. Wanting a thing is not the same as accepting the way it is being delivered.