The federalisation of the European Union describes processes and proposals by which the European Union (EU) could be transformed from an informal confederation (a union of sovereign states) into a federation (a single federal state with a central government, consisting of a number of partially self-governing federated states). There is ongoing discussion about the extent to which the EU has already become a federation over the course of decades, and more importantly, to what degree it should continue to evolve into a federalist direction. As of December 2020, the EU has no formal plans to become a federation.