Original scientific paper
Explaining the Failure of the European Constitution: A Constitution-making Perspective
Robert Podolnjak
Abstract
It is the thesis of this paper that the main causes of the failure of the European Constitution result from bad preparation and management of a complex process of constitution-making for a union of states of continental proportions. This process includes the questions of the temporal aspect of constitution-making, the subjects of constitution-making, the strategy of constitutional ratification, the constitution-makers themselves, and finally the very text of the Constitution. Significant discussion on these questions is missing, which is wrong, because these constitutional causes of failure should be instructive for a possible future European constitution-making process. The crucial reasons for the failure of the European Constitution are elaborated as certain preliminary propositions. In the author's opinion, the principal errors of the European constitution-making are evident in the beginning of the constitution-making process in the moment not suitable for the constitution-making, in the ambiguity of the document regarding its constitutional or treaty character, in creating the document completely unintelligible to a common citizen, in making the Constitution without vision and ambition, in the complete absence of any strategy of constitutional ratification, in insisting on direct involvement of the people in the acceptance of the Constitution, which was contemplated legally and politically principally as an international treaty, and in a poorly managed media presentation and defence of the Constitution before the European public. The most important of them is an ambivalent approach of the European constitution-makers to the method of ratification of their Constitution. The next most important error is that they have not made use of comparative experiences of constitution-making of other federal unions.
Keywords
European Union; European Constitution; constitution-making
Hrčak ID:
9827
URI
Publication date:
15.2.2007.
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