The new Europe and public reason

Abstract

This paper will examine the issue of finding the most adequate conception of normative legitimacy for the European Union. I shall argue that John Rawls’s idea of public reason is crucially important in this context. Rawls maintains that the idea of public reason is important not only for constitutional democracies, but also at the international level. Following Rawls’s lead, this paper focuses on the idea of public reason at the EU level. However, I shall argue that the idea of public reason that is adequate for the European Union should be based on the conception of free and equal citizens, instead of Rawls’s conception of peoples.