Contribution in an anthology

Appeared in: The unity of the European constitution

Editor list: Dann, Philipp; Rynkowski, Michał

Publication year: 2006

Pages: 13-36

ISBN: 978-3-540-35450-5

eISBN: 978-3-540-37721-4

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-37721-4_2

Title of series: Beiträge zum ausländischen öffentlichen Recht und Völkerrecht

Number in series: 186

Abstract: 

The “Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe” elicits divergent scholarly responses. An apologetic view holds that it is the best of all possible constitutions, given the current constellations of political forces. Such a viewpoint is countered by a mixed choir of critics for whom the document is simply another treaty, a “nostalgic project,” or a merely “semantic constitution.” Some even believe that the recourse to constitutional rhetoric endangers the rational substance of the European status quo; others fear that this very conceptuality could be damaged. The present chapter endeavors to find a third approach. It offers a critical stance as regards the unfortunate, phraseological, sometimes even ideological language of the Constitutional Treaty. Simultaneously, the constitutional text is taken seriously in its normative statements. This approach aims to reconstruct the document from a point of view which depicts it, despite its contradictions, as a project with a rightful place in the tradition of Western constitutionalism.

Harvard Citation style: Bast, J. (2006) The Constitutional Treaty as a Reflexive Constitution, in Dann, P. and Rynkowski, M. (eds.) The unity of the European constitution. Berlin: Springer, pp. 13-36. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-37721-4_2

APA Citation style: Bast, J. (2006). The Constitutional Treaty as a Reflexive Constitution. In Dann, P., & Rynkowski, M. (Eds.), The unity of the European constitution (pp. 13-36). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-37721-4_2