EU Constitution Research Articles

The Europeanization of Ratification Procedures: Towards a EU-Wide Constitutional Convention?

The word “Europeanisation” has acquired so many meanings that it is difficult to disagree with Olsen that it is not very useful in theoretical terms (Olsen; 2001). In this context, it results unavoidable a previous clarification of the meaning in which it is used here, even though the object of this paper is not a theoretical inquiry on the concept, but rather an assessment on whether the process has happened. Europeanization means the impact of the EU on the domestic structures or, in other words, the political system. Since the object of this inquiry refers to the ratification of the EU constitution, the inquiry can be framed along the following question: what is the influence of the EU norms on domestic processes of ratification? The response is immediate. EU ratification rules do not seem prima facie to impose constraints on national ones and, hence, impact could not be easily identified. If Europeanization is defined as the transformation brought about by the impact of EU level on the national one, then, it has not happened. However, a different model of “europeanisation” has happened: member states show signs of a trend towards converging in certain models of ratification. Naturally, this does not mean that all they use the same procedures and in the same form. It means, rather, that they watch closely each other and they adopt and adapt their own ratification procedures according to the learning of what other member states have done. The paper reviews this argument in the following sections. Firstly, it examines briefly the changes that the draft constitution introduced and compares it with the American model of ratification. It then examines the three main procedures for ratification to asses whether some convergence can be appreciated. This paper discusses the three procedures used for ratification (constitutional reform, parliamentary ratification and referendums) as well as the actors involved (constitutional courts and political parties) with the aim of mapping out the eventual emergence of a “constitutional convention” on the ratification of the Constitution. The underlying inquiry seeks to establish whether ratification of the EU Constitution produces an Europeanization of procedures. It finally ponders the extent to which we can refer to “Europeanisation” of ratification procedures understood as an increased convergence among Member States.

Debating the EU Constitution in France

This paper focuses on the argumentative approaches and the rhetorical strategies employed by political actors in France in favour of or against the EU Constitutional Treaty (TCE), as they appeared in four French daily newspapers, Le Monde, Le Figaro, Libération and Aujourd’hui en France (national edition of Le Parisien), before the 29th of May 2005 referendum. In a qualitative discourse analysis and with the aid of argumentation theories and political communication approaches, the study investigates how the European Union’s Constitution, identity and future were represented and discussed by French political actors through the media in their effort to obtain public adherence before the referendum. Inevitably, the role of the media and the mediation process in the construction and transcription of the political discourse is also discussed.

Which Constitution for What Kind of Europe? Three Models of European Constitutionalism

Predictably, the draft EU constitution has come in for considerable criticism – not least from many of those who had favoured this initiative most. These critics charge the constitution with being too long and complex and in particular for failing either to demarcate clearly the EU’s sphere of influence vis-a-vis the Member States or to simplify European decision-making and render it more democratically accountable to citizens.1 I believe these two common criticisms are misplaced. They reflect two models of constitutionalism, as based respectively on either agreed European norms and purposes or a sovereign European people, which prove inappropriate to the EU. Indeed, the inadequacies and resulting length and complexity of the EU constitution largely stem from the need to modify and qualify these models within the EU context. In fact, the EU already had a constitution that reflected a distinctive third model.2 This combined a neo-republican form of governance with the evolution of a European common law. I shall argue that this third model isfar better suited to the EU’s character as an evolving polity and ought to be improved and enhanced, not replaced.

Symposium: Carson Holloway, The Way of Life: John Paul II and the Challenge of Liberal Modernity

In the twentieth century, liberal modernity survived attacks from two forms of illiberal modernity, Stalinism and Nazism. In 1940, at the beginning of the war to the death with Nazism, the statesman most responsible for its survival in that war, described thusly what was at stake: “Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. . . . Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour’.”1 Substantially through his efforts, “liberal modernity,” “the West,” and “Christian civilization” survived that threat. But its survival was almost immediately again threatened by the rise in the East of a danger at least as great. The last half of the twentieth century was a protracted conflict between “the free world” and Soviet communism, although the growing influence of relativism in “the West” as the century wore on eventually made it controversial to speak there of “the free world.” The conflict ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the subsequent liberation of the countries of Eastern Europe, and the relaxing of communist rule in what became once again Russia rather than the Soviet Union. However, by that time, no European statesman would speak publicly of “Christian civilization,” let alone summon it to defend itself. The Cold War coincided with a secularization of the West that rendered such a description and summons anachronistic. By 2004, European political elites would publicly refuse, and make a virtue of refusing, to acknowledge Europe’s Christian heritage in the proposed EU Constitution;2 they would also refuse to accept Italy’s representative to the EU as its commissioner for justice, apparently because he was a Catholic who agreed with the Church on certain moral questions concerning which the Church is in conflict with the liberal secularism

Improving EU Constitutional Politics? A Preliminary Assessment of the Convention

The drafting of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union inaugurated a new procedure for the elaboration of constitutional rules, i.e. the Convention (whose very name was an act of self-assertion by releasing itself from its original designation as ‘the body’), and its success prompted its adoption for the preparation of the forthcoming 2004 IGC. The Convention, followed by an IGC, splits the procedure of 'constitutional' reform into two stages: a preparatory (deliberative) phase and a decision-making (negotiating) one and, in the eyes of the European leaders, this may resolve the dilemma of how to suffuse the Constitution-making exercise with legitimacy without relinquishing the 'constitutive power' of national governments. Re-staging the preparatory phase within a Convention implies opening up EU constitutive politics to a deliberative process that, nevertheless, does not a priori exclude the transactional dynamics of an IGC since preparatory outcomes do not necessarily bind upon 'true' negotiators.

The prospect of Turkey’s EU membership as represented in the British newspapers The Times and The Guardian, 2002—2005

This article examines the prospect of Turkey’s EU membership as presented in two influential British newspapers and their Sunday editions ( The Guardian/Observer and The Times/Sunday Times) during the eventful period of 2002—5, when Turkey’s expectations of setting a date for the start of accession talks overlapped with the establishment in Turkey of a single party government with roots in political Islam, the preparatory phase of the EU constitution, and the terrorist attacks on British targets in Istanbul. The particular aim is to find out how the enthusiastic support of the British government for Turkey’s EU membership was reflected and evaluated in the press, and what particular arguments (pragmatic, moral and ethical—political) were put forward either for or against. A discourse analysis of the papers’ regular columnists and news correspondents suggests that although The Guardian/Observer and The Times/Sunday Times do not hold radically different views on the issue, and are close to the British government’s pro-Turkish stance, they differ in their degree of support for Turkey’s EU membership and the rationale they deploy to support their respective positions.

Constitutionalism and Dissonances: Has Europe Paid Off Its Debt to Functionalism?

Abstract The negative outcomes of the French and Dutch referenda on the Constitutional Treaty have opened a period of profound constitutional disenchantment in relation to the EU. This impression seems confirmed by the recent Presidency Conclusions of the European Council which, although salvaging many important solutions contained in the Constitutional Treaty, explicitly sanction that ‘the constitutional concept . . . is abandoned’. In the light of this context, what role could the constitutional scholarship play? How to make sense of a polity in which the claims of constitutionalism as a form of power are politically unappealing though legally plausible? This article tries to respond to these questions by reaffirming functionalism as a valid analytical and normative perspective in facing the current constitutional reality of European integration. The analytical value associated with functionalism is evidenced by testing against the current context of the EU legal framework the accounts for EU constitutionalism which postulate functional equivalence between the EU and the Member States. The normative potential of functionalism, then, is discussed by arguing that there may be a value worth preserving in a degree of functional discrepancy between the EU and state constitutionalism and, notably, that the transformative and civilising dividend inherent in functionalism could still be exploited, at least in certain areas of EU policy making. Finally, the article suggests that the difficulties in accounting for EU constitutionalism in the light of state‐centred constitutional theory could be regarded as symptoms of European integration marking a moment in the theoretical evolution of constitutionalism.

Covering the European Union

This article investigates the cross-national prevalence of five news frames in quality papers’ coverage of the Treaty of Lisbon (EU Constitution). Three frames were identified in earlier studies: economic consequences, conflict, and human interest. Two additional frames were identified and composed: power and nationalisation. During the seven-month period leading up to the signing of the Treaty of Lisbon (December 2007), we analysed 341 articles from four quality papers: Le Monde (France), De Volkskrant (The Netherlands), De Standaard (Dutch speaking community of Belgium), and Le Soir (French speaking community of Belgium). Our results show that although significant differences between newspapers were found in the amount of framing, overall they reflected a similar pattern in the adoption of the news frames. The economic consequences frame, followed by the power frame, appeared most prominently in all of the newspapers’ coverage. However, the conflict and nationalisation frames recurred in a significantly lesser degree. These findings indicate that the meaning behind the EU Constitution as a symbol of supranational unity could have led to a shift from a domesticated, conflict oriented coverage as found in previous studies to a more unified portrayal of the EU within and between the quality papers under study.

Revisiting Flexible Integration in Times of Post-enlargement and Lustration of EU Constitutionalism

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Is Constitutional Politics Like Politics ‘at Home’? The Case of the EU Constitution

A large number of delegates from different institutional levels within the EU have achieved a remarkable consensus on a draft constitution. Has this consensus been made possible because the nationally predominant left–right divide was only weakly present during the deliberations of the delegates? Left–right differences have been analysed by means of a content analysis on submitted documents during the European Convention. The data analysis confirms our assumption that the left–right distinction was relevant, although not very dominant. The draft constitution did not take a mean position on left and right issues, but in fact puts more emphasis on substantial goals related to both left and right, giving an equal weight to both anti-poles. However, if we exclude the Charter of Human Rights, the draft constitution appears to be strongly tilted to the right. The analysis also shows that party family differences did affect the process of coalition building during the Convention, since more than half of all documents have been submitted together with at least one member of the same party family and/or with one family member close by. Our analysis also indicates that the process of consensus building was enhanced by the absence of many extremist and new parties during the Convention. This may have enhanced agreement on the Constitution, but later it became problematic for the domestic democratic process and for the acceptance of the Constitution in some countries, such as France and the Netherlands, especially since some of the excluded parties have actively and successfully mobilised voters to vote against the Constitution.

Reversed Mobilization in Referendum Campaigns

This multimethodological study focuses on risk-induced electoral mobilization in referendum campaigns. Positive news framing in a referendum campaign can generate a perception of risk among those voters opposing the proposal and stimulate electoral participation to prevent an undesired outcome that would alter a status quo situation. To test this claim, the authors analyze the effect of news framing on turnout in the context of the 2005 Dutch EU Constitution referendum campaign and combine a media content analysis of national newspapers and television news ( n = 6,370) with panel survey data ( n = 642) and an experiment ( n = 687). Experimental findings show that individuals who are skeptical toward the EU and are subsequently exposed to positive news framing about the EU Constitution are mobilized to turn out and vote against it. The results of the content analysis show that during the Dutch referendum campaign, news media framed the EU Constitution in positive terms. Building these findings into a measure of news exposure in our panel survey, the authors find that higher exposure to referendum news had a mobilizing effect on those opposing the proposal. The experimental and panel data thus show corroborating evidence supporting the central hypothesis about how positive news can mobilize the skeptics to turn out and vote in a referendum.

The Lisbon Treaty and the CCTB (Common Corporate Tax Base): The Debate

The fact that direct taxation in the EU is still not integrated, and maybe will never be fully integrated, is one of the major obstacles for the 'single market'. The essay describes the history of attempts (and failures) to harmonize direct taxation in the EU - fully or partly. It concentrate on the enhancement of a common corporate tax base, by one of two optional techniques: the attempt to achieve qualified majority vote on direct tax matters in the rejected EU constitution, and the threat to use the Enhanced cooperation procedure, which is already embodied in the EC Treaty but is improved by the Lisbon Treaty, recently rejected by the Irish referendum. The essay analyzes the chances of such a move as well as the possible implications thereof.

Debating Europe in the French Socialist Party: The 2004 Internal Referendum on the EU Constitution

This paper assesses the views on European integration in the French Socialist Party (PS) expressed before the internal referendum on the European Constitutional Treaty on 1 December 2004. Using content analysis of 112 public statements that formed part of the preceding debate, I establish the ideological characteristics of support and opposition to the EU in the PS. This paper has three main aims. First, it considers the extent and nature of opposition to the Constitution in the PS. Second, it places the ratification debate within the context of wider ideological conflicts that oppose social democracy, socialism and left-liberalism. Third, it examines ideological differences within the ‘no’ camp in the PS.

Nordic newspapers on the EU

Previous studies (by the author of this article) on coverage of the EU in 1993 and 1996 by four leading Nordic newspapers generated three theoretical categories for a `European political journalism'. The categories were named participation, legitimacy and mondialization/universalism. The present study revisited the same Nordic newspapers over 10 years later in 2005, shortly before and after the referenda on the proposed new EU Constitution in France and the Netherlands, to test the validity of these categories. Generally speaking, the same conceptual landscape still applies to Nordic journalism on the EU, but some of the empirical material seemed to demand the new category of `identity'. This category seemed to be linked both to threats to national identity and to the loss of an emerging `core European identity'. The article suggests that the core category of journalism's sense-making about the EU is the question of `participation'. This core category is grounded on the classical Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft distinctions. The three other important categories — legitimacy, mondialization and identity — can be seen as supporting categories in the analysis of media coverage of the European Union. Within this general and normative conceptual frame, there are remarkable differences in the way the Nordic newspapers contribute to such European political journalism.

Histoire du Christianisme: Pour mieux comprendre notre temps (review)

General and Miscellaneous Histoire du Christianisme: Pour mieux comprendre notre temps. Edited by Alain Corbin, with Nicole LeMaitre, Francoise Thelamon, and Catherine Vincent. [L'Universe Historique.] (Paris: Editions du Seuil. 2007. Pp. 475. euro21,00 paperback.) Most one-volume histories of the Church are usually written by one person, or two at most.This one-volume Histoire du Christianisme is written by fiftysix authors! One does wonder why there was such a massive effort to put together what is a straightforward and largely ordinary history of the Church. I suspect that this book is partly an attempt to reclaim for France its essential grounding in Christianity, and especially Catholicism, and to remind its readers that the history of the Church is not something that can be discarded so easily as attendance at Mass. The involvement of such a large collection of well-known scholars-mostly lay people and chosen principally from state universities-is to underline the urgency of such a task. The European Union's exclusion of any mention of Christianity in its recent constitution has hopefully sent shock waves through the European academic community, awaking them to the fact that the knowledge of the involvement and importance of Christianity in the formation of Europe may possibly be lost. Europe may not be the Faith, nor the Faith Europe, as Hilaire BeEoc claimed in the early twentieth century, but Belloc was a lot closer to the truth than the drafters of the EU constitution. The book is divided into four major parts, each prefaced by an overview by one of the editors: 1 (Au Commencement), 2 (Le MoyenAge), 3 (Les temps modernes), and 4 (Le temps de l'Adaption). There are many good things to be said about this book. The editors express a desire that the book appeal to a wide audience (at least in France), and in this they should succeed. For the most part, important issues or episodes are addressed and balanced opinions given. The general editors did an admirable job of avoiding repetition in content.The short chapters allowed some latitude in topics. There are particularly interesting chapters on St. Paul and why he chose regional capitals as his bases of operation (by Marie-Francoise Basiez), St. Jerome and his Latin translation of the Old and New Testaments (by YvesMarie Duval), the cathedral (by Catherine Vincent), and the Cult of Mary (Sylvie Barnay). One of the more interesting chapters was on the race to catechize the faithful and especially the young, during the Reformation, on both the Protestant and Catholic fronts (by Marc Venard). …

A Theoretical Interpretation of the Failed Constitution-Making in the European Union:Exit, Voice, Loyalty, and the EU Constitution

A Theoretical Interpretation of the Failed Constitution-Making in the European Union:Exit, Voice, Loyalty, and the EU Constitution

The Dutch No to the EU Constitution: Assessing the Role of EU Skepticism and the Campaign

In June 2005 the Dutch electorate rejected the EU constitutional treaty in a national referendum. The current study, which focuses on vote choice and the campaign, draws on complementary explanations for referendum voting behavior. We investigated how attitudes towards the EU influenced the intention to vote No ahead of the campaign as well as the impact of the campaign and the media on the final vote. Therefore, we combined a media content analysis (n = 6,643) with panel survey data (n = 1,379). Results reveal that prior to the actual start of the campaign, existing skepticism towards the EU was the strongest determinant for the intention to vote No and served as a mediator for the influence of other relevant factors such as disapproval of the incumbent government, feelings of national identity and fear of globalization. During the campaign the referendum topic was highly visible in the news with a positive tone towards the Constitution. In this context, higher levels of exposure to referendum news increased the likelihood of voters to switch over to the Yes side.

The Unpatriotism of the Economic Constitution? Rights to Free Movement and their Impact on National and European Identity

Abstract: Instead of the political reading of the EU Constitution adopted by advocates of constitutional patriotism, this article examines the European economic constitution. The four single market freedoms can be used by the Court of Justice to strike down Member State laws which represent deeply held aspects of national cultural identity. The article examines whether the court does in fact act in this way and proceeds to argue that the issue of identity protection does not stop with the court. In those policy areas where the court is more interventionist, and its case‐law is perceived as an identity threat, one is likely to find binding Treaty‐based derogations. Where, in contrast, the effect of the court's case‐law poses less of a threat, one is more likely to see non‐binding declarations. The article examines a number of policy areas in which specific cultural derogations and declarations are to be found, including abortion, property acquisition, football and alcohol control.

The Pitfalls of (Comparative) Constitutionalism for European Integration

The purpose of this paper, in contrast to the mainstream EU scholarship, is to expose the other, much less studied and potentially darker side of the EU constitutionalism. It therefore asks a question about the constitutional pitfalls for European integration. Relying on a social constructionist approach following which the current state of EU legal affairs is a product of the dominant constitutional narrative, it examines whether and to what an extent constitutionalism as a dominant narrative is itself a source at least of some of the problems that haunt the integration. The paper thus proceeds on a hypothesis that if practices of integration do not deliver as they should, this must be due to the guidance of the dominant narrative. For any practice that is based on the wrong narrative can not be but self-defeating. To prove this hypothesis the contours of the dominant constitutional narrative will be examined first. It will be explored how the integration appears in the light of the constitutional narrative and why and where the constitutional narrative has emerged from. The answers to these questions will subsequently reveal the central, unique and peculiar role that comparative constitutionalism has played in the emergence of the EU constitutional narrative. It will be demonstrated and explained how and why a constitutive dependence of the EU constitutional narrative on a very specific comparative constitutional experience actually created two at present major legal and political problems of integration. Finally, by the way of conclusion, the paper will assess why and whether the present EU constitutional narrative, in spite of its numerous drawbacks, should and could be reformed so that the very idea of European constitutionalism could be salvaged and that integration could continue its constitutional journey, albeit following a different track.

The Europeanisation of National Constitutions in the Constitutionalisation of Europe: Some Observations against the Background of the Constitutional Experience of the EU-15

In the process of European integration, national constitutional law remains crucial, in several respects. The EU Constitution, in its broadest sense, builds on the common constitutional traditions and principles of the Member States, and EU law refers back to national constitutional law in many ways. National constitutional law contributes to constitutionalising the EU, to give it legitimacy, and to ensure that the EU and the Member States as its agents continue to comply with fundamental constitutional requirements, such as the rule of law, democracy and accountability, and the protection of fundamental rights. Also, from the national perspective, national constitutional law remains essential, since it provides the foundation of membership of the EU, it is decisive for the procedures to be followed when powers are transferred at times of accession and Treaty amendment, and it serves to provide the connection between the national and the EU legal orders. Participation in the EU requires adaptation of the national constitutional arrangements, and national constitutions should not be neglected in the process of the constitutionalisation of Europe. This paper looks into the national constitutional experience of the EU-15 with the EU and asks whether lessons can be learned for candidate countries.