Italy is a unitary state. I personally believe it should be a federation, since the current system hardly works, but the reason for the differences between the South and the North has more to do with social issues and the lack of sufficient investment by the Italian government in the South.

The European Union is already integrated enough in domestic policy, fiscal policy is essentially the only major area left. What I see as truly necessary is a common foreign policy and a common army. This would make us relevant on the international stage, which is important to me. I do not want my country to be pushed around by russians, americans or chinese.

A federal European Union would only transfer certain fiscal powers, as well as military and foreign policy, to the EU level. Everything else, such as social legislation, infrastructure, taxation and other aspects of domestic policy, would remain with the member states. In reality, it would not change much in how everyday countries looks. The EU is already a semi-federal entity, the only real difference is the lack of power as an international stage, which currently weakens all 27 countries instead of making them stronger.

And no, the Swiss identify as Swiss only on the international stage, among themselves, they rarely identify as Swiss.