Historically Unique, Unfinished in Detail – An Evaluation of the Constitution
Historically Unique, Unfinished in Detail – An Evaluation of the Constitution

Summary/Abstract: Europe has a Constitution. Almost a year after the end of the deliberations in the European Convention, and following a failed first attempt to adopt the Constitution in December 2003 the European Heads of State and Government agreed on a new constitutional foundation for the enlarged European Union on June 18, 2004. The current Treaties together with the European Charter of Fundamental Rights are brought together into a single text including four parts and approximately 460 articles. Thus, the European Union, for the first time in its history, now has a Constitution laid down in a single document. Although this is by no means the end of history, and although a common constitutional identity must still be forged in Europe, the agreement reached in Brussels is a historic caesura in the European integration process. The Constitution brings the European Union to a higher level of integration and ties the member states together more closely. Beyond its historic importance, the question remains of what concrete progress the “Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe” actually entails. In general, partisan bargaining behind closed doors, which came to dominate the final stages of the Intergovernmental Conference, had a price. In several points, the compromise that emerged from the negotiations is inferior to the draft proposed by the European Convention in July 2003. Nevertheless, the final result does revise the most important problems present in the Treaty of Nice, and it is significantly more promising than what would have been achieved with the usual procedure of an Intergovernmental Conference without a Convention.

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