How to fix Europe

With 27 member states, the EU is perceived to be unwieldy, bureaucratic and slow to make decisions, and although the European Parliament is democratically elected, the European Commission and the European Council are not.  And the member states retain veto power on important issues.

How would I fix this, if I could wave a magic wand and make things happen?  (Note: This are rough ideas, and this is a work in progress.)

1) There must be a President of Europe, directly elected by all European Citizens.

2) There are far too many member states, and the states have too much power.  First, I would eliminate the veto, and have all issued decided by qualified majority voting.  Second, there are too many small states, and trying to discuss and decide things with all 27 states represented at the top table is basically hopeless.  This will only get worse when Serbia, Albania etc. are admitted, which I hope will be soon. The small states simply have to be grouped together so there are at most ten seats at the top table.  I propose doing this as follows:

• Give the Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg) one seat.
• Combine the Nordic countries (Denmark, Sweden, Finland) with Estonia and Latvia. Get Norway and Iceland to join as soon as possible and put them in this group too.
• Combine the former countries of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Austria, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-and-Hercegovina, and Romania).
• De-balkanize the Balkans! Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria get one seat. Greece and Cyprus will have to go into this group too.
• Hopefully the UK will come to its senses and quickly re-join.  UK and Ireland get one seat.
• Poland and Lithuania, which share a lot of history and culture, get a single seat.
• Spain and Portugal, likewise, get a single seat.
• Malta will come under the auspices of Italy.
• Germany gets a seat to itself.
• So does France.

3) There are far too many official languages.  There should be one Latin-based language, one Germanic language, and one Slavic language. To avoid giving even more power to states that already have large populations, let's pick Portuguese, Swedish and Slovakian. There's no point making English an official language, as everyone already speaks that unofficially.

4) There must be a European Constitution or at least a Bill of Rights.  The abortive attempt at a Constitution in 2003 was a massive 335-page tome, which perhaps exemplifies the worst of European bureaucracy.  Contrast that with the US Constitution, which was originally written on four sheets of parchment, and is short enough that every American school child can read it and understand it.  But to my mind it's the Bill of Rights that's the most important thing.  What is the EU for, if not to defend the rights and freedoms of its Citizens?  So maybe for now just take the US Bill of Rights, translate it into the three official languages as above, and ship it!

5) Replace the European Commission by a  US-style Executive Branch.  Have the President of Europe nominate a Cabinet, whose members are confirmed by the European Parliament, similarly to the way the USA does it.

6) A single European Army and a single European Border Force instead of 27 separate armies and customs agencies.

I think that just about does it, for now.