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 foreign affairs and defense matters, citizenship (but not immigration) and currency, similarly to the relationship between the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba. An important detail would be that such relationship could be severed unilaterally by Gibraltar but not by the UK.

In the UK itself, following the devolution of Scotland and Wales some sort of devolution for England is on the agenda too, with legislation presently being enacted to provide for referendums in England’s regions for establishing elected assemblies, albeit with less legislative or fiscal powers than Scottish or Welsh ones. Interestingly, the advocates of a Yorkshire assembly or an English parliament are invoking the right of self-determination!

The United Kingdom is unlikely to become a standard federation though, for its devolution involves considerable asymmetry with various degrees of self-government and substantially different constitutional arrangements for England, Scotland, Wales, Ulster, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, and the Overseas Territories. Further asymmetry is brought in by overseas territories like South Georgia or Akrotiri and Dhekelia presently lacking local population which might support self-government, and others like Ascension or Chagos (British Indian Ocean Territory) that are at certain intermediate stages of their political evolution.

By the way, even the classical federation of the United States of America has (besides its fifty constituent states) asymmetric components like Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, US Virgin Islands, and the federal District of Columbia itself. Most of these have their elected governors who are heads of government, as well as their own elected nonvoting representatives in the US Congress.

Among European overseas territories, Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles have ministers plenipotentiary in the Council of Ministers for the Kingdom of Netherlands, dealing with defense, national sovereignty, foreign relations and citizenship. They elect no MPs in the Netherlands Parliament but send delegates when legislation for the entire realm is enacted. The Governors of Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles are local residents. The three countries: the Netherlands in Europe, the Netherlands Antilles (comprising Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, St. Eustatius, and St. Maarten), and Aruba, have an equal voice in the Kingdom, making it a kind of federation.

According to the 1957 Treaty of Rome subsequently amended by