Come to speak of it, are there even any real working confederations in the World? The closest I would say is the EU, but that still is more of a Political Organisation than a Confederation. Maybe Serbia and Montenegro was? But they dont exist anymore. Confederation seems to be a buzzword, but in reality hardly workable. N-VA probably hide behind "Confederalism" like the Quebec Seperatists hid behind "A new Economic and Political Partnership", while in reality they want a fully fledged independent State with nothing more than normal State to State relations with Wallonia.
It never works because it's basically impossible to have two separate centers of political power without (1) one of them overtaking the other, or (2) them both feeling their authority was too threatened and mutually agreeing to end the relationship.
This is one of the reasons that the various iterations of Arab federalism that were tried in the 1950s-1970s never lasted more than a few years. They had the benefit of ethnic, religious and linguistic homogeneity and still couldn't make it work!
