Confederation (from the Latin confoederatio - association, union) is one of the rarest forms of government. Strictly speaking, the confederation is not even a full-fledged state in its essence, since it combines several completely sovereign independent states. In addition, historical experience shows that the confederate structure is not only one of the rarest, but also one of the most unstable state formations.
All currently known confederate unions either disintegrated after a short existence, or were transformed into full-fledged federal states. Such political instability is primarily due to the peculiarities of the confederate union itself, which at the same time has the characteristics of both a single state and an international legal union of sovereign states. Regardless of the historical and cultural features of development, all confederations have the following universal characteristics: 1. Confederate unions are created to achieve a certain common goal (economic, political or military cooperation, trade development, etc.); 2. The subjects of the confederation have the right to unilaterally terminate the confederation agreement and freely exit; 3. Sovereignty in a confederation belongs to its subjects. Not a single decision of the confederal authorities has legal force without ratification (approval) by its member states; 4. Confederate authorities only have a limited range of issues. Usually these are the problems of war and peace, the creation of a common communication system, the formation of a unified army and foreign policy; 5. The system of confederal authorities is limited in comparison with systems of sovereign states. In particular, it creates only those authorities and institutions that are necessary to solve specific problems. As a rule, there are no judicial authorities; 6. The budget of the confederation can only be created at the expense of voluntary contributions from the member states of the union. The confederation does not have a system of compulsory collection of taxes and fees; 7. The Confederate Parliament is formed by the representative bodies of the subjects of the Confederation, and all delegates in it comply with the instructions given to them by sovereign states; 8. Most confederal unions lack common citizenship. Currently, there are no full confederal unions in the world. Even Switzerland, which is officially called the Swiss Confederation, is essentially a federal state. The European Union is closest to the confederation in its structure, but formally it is not recognized as such.
