Europe: Political, not cosmopolitan

Constellations, 2004

International Journal of Constitutional Law, 2011

This paper is a contribution to the ongoing constitutional debate of 31 Master Fellows of 17 different nationalities currently completing a Master Programme in European Studies at the Centre for European Integration Studies (ZEI) in Bonn. As part of a course on the history of European integration held by Professor Dr. Ludger Kühnhardt, Director at ZEI, Master Fellows decided to take on the academic endeavour in proposing an alternative constitution for Europe. This resulted in a “split” of the Master Fellows into two basic groups dealing with two different approaches to a brave new constitutional project – one relying on the current draft of the Constitutional Treaty, the other one going beyond it.

2002

This Article discusses the latest episode in the history of one of the European Union. Part I provides an overview of the integration project. Part II highlights the significance of debating the future of Europe. Part III presents the vehicle of the European Convention. Part IV analyses selected constitutionalizing themes offered in Monsieur Giscard's blueprint. Finally, Part V offers findings and perspectives.

European Law Journal, 2001

The institutional reforms of the EU, coupled with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, have fuelled the debate about a European Constitution. This paper begins by examining the nature of constitutions and constitutionalism. The focus then turns to the EU itself. It is argued that the Community has indeed been transformed into a constitutional legal order, and that the arguments to the contrary are not convincing. This does not however mean that the EU has, or should have, a European Constitution cognisable as such which draws together the constitutional articles of the Treaties, together with the constitutional principles articulated by the European Court of Justice. The diculties with this strategy are examined in detail, and the conclusion is that we should not at present pursue this course. It would be better to draw on the valuable work done by the European University Institute in its recent study in order to simplify and consolidate the Treaties.

Icon-international Journal of Constitutional Law, 2006

European Union Enlargement, 2004

In this article we explore the risk of arresting the radical, structural changes in the EU's evolution after the negative pronounce by the people of France and the Netherlands about the so-called "Constitution". Consequently to the big push eastwards, the EU has the chance to become a supranational laboratory for an extraordinary democratic experiment tending, in the long term, to build something more stable and inclusive than a thin "liberal community" characterized by a certain amount of civic concern, and shaping a Weltinnenpolitik outside the horizon of a post-national constellation forced into national cages, even if pushed to the forefront of academic debate with a federal asset.

Rethinking European Constitutionalism, 2001