1 - In defence of the status quo: Europe's constitutional Sonderweg
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 June 2009
Summary
Introduction: Europe's fateful choice
To judge by the renewed popularity of the idea of a Constitution for Europe one might get the impression that right now Europe is in some kind of constitutional desert. And now we have a European Philadelphia busy preparing yet another document in which the word ‘constitution’ is almost certain to figure. If a formal constitution is to be the European Promised Land, I think I will join Moses and stick to the desert. In this chapter I will explain this preference.
The idea of a constitution is presented as indispensably part and parcel of a legitimating reform package of an enlarged Europe. It is not, of course, an original idea and can be traced back at least to Spinelli's Draft Treaty for European Union. Whether one can have a Europe which would respect the current constitutional acquis and embed it in a formal constitution adopted through a European constituent power and, at the same time, not become a federal state in all but name is very doubtful. I think it is a chimera. But the very idea of a formalized constitution requires some serious critical reflection. What appears to be progressive may in fact be regressive. This new fad of a new constitution for Europe may, in fact, be leading us away from the Promised Land into a familiar and boring desert.
Let us step back a minute to review our well-known history.
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- European Constitutionalism beyond the State , pp. 7 - 24Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003
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