L'UE en tant que projet constitutionnel

Cette étude en ligne publiée
par le Federal Trust se penche sur les enjeux du
débat autour des référendums sur le Traité
constitutionnel, au Royaume-Uni et ailleurs.

Abstract

The paper sets out to examine what is at
stake in the Constitutional Treaty referendum
debate in the UK and elsewhere both in the
short- term and in the long-term.
Understandably, the political energies of the
pro- and anti-Constitutionalists are focussed
on the short-term objective of obtaining a
“yes” or a “no” vote, but
this tends to deflect attention away from the
longer-term symbolic implications of a
constitutional founding for the EU. The paper
locates the symbolic significance of the
Constitution in the dual (forward- and
backward-looking) aspects of its role as a
model of political community. It argues that
for the Constitution to provide the catalyst
for an expansive and inclusive forward-looking
conception of political community, the debate
on ratification cannot, as it threatens to do
if short-term calculations prevail, be allowed
to descend into a polar opposition between a
social democratic “statist”
conception of the EU on the one hand and a
reactionary nationalism on the other.

This Online Paper 19/04 by the
Federal Trust was written by Neil Walker,
European University Institute,
Florence. 

Click here

to access the paper.