State and Future of the European Constitution – Improvement or Radical Reform?

2001 ◽  
Vol 2 (15) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominik Hanf

In January 1999 German Foreign Minister J. Fischer called for a debate on the creation of a constitution for the European Union. Since then, many German politicians have exposed their vision of the future of Europe and its constitution. However, even one year later, the matter appeared still to be a ‘German concern’ only.

Author(s):  
Hernan Tesler-Mabe

As recently as one year ago, the European Union was seemingly on a direct path toward its avowed goal of "ever closer union." In numerous publications, EU authorities asserted that they had the confidence of European peoples desirous only of further integration. In the wake of the failed referenda for a European Constitution, however, enthusiasts of European Union can no longer be certain that their enterprise will succeed. The European Union, once strong and united, seems now an entity teetering on the edge of collapse. The reasons for such a dramatic shift are, of course, wide-ranging. Yet I would suggest that a great part of the general European disillusionment with European Union has come about as a result of the actions of the Europeanists themselves. Over the last decades, European officials have exhibited a frightfully high incidence of revisionism in their literature. This practice, I argue, has caused many Europeans to question the integrity of the project of European Union. For my presentation, I intend to undertake a close study of a selection of documents published by the European Communities. In this endeavour, I will compare and contrast the messages imparted in different editions of these works and consider the semiotic significance of the textual and non-textual language appearing therein. In this manner, I hope to achieve two aims. First, I mean to add a corrective element to a literature that, guided by a teleological interpretation of integration, endows integration with”logic" to be found only in hindsight. Second, I intend to examine the many meanings that the EU has had over its history and assess how closely policy has adhered to the ideological goals of prominent Europeanists. In sum, I hope to shed light on the fundamental disconnect between advocates of Europe and the "man on the street" and help establish a dialogue which may contribute to resolving the current impasse within the European Union. Full text available: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v2i4.178


2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (144) ◽  
pp. 419-433
Author(s):  
Anne Karrass ◽  
Andreas Fisahn

The French and Dutch “no” to the European Constitution and the following “period of reflection” offer the opportunity to introduce critical ideas into the discussion on the future of the European Union. For the critics it is not only necessary to excoriate the Constitution, but also to propose alternatives. The authors therefore generate requirements for the contents of a new European Constitution. In a second step concrete alternatives are provided, dealing among others with a democratic way of organizing the European institutions, basic rights as well as economic and social policies. The general aim is to open the Constitution for political processes, which means to minimize the (economic) stipulations for European politics in the Constitution.


2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hernan Tesler-Mabe

As recently as one year ago, the European Union was seemingly on a direct path toward its avowed goal of "ever closer union." In numerous publications, EU authorities asserted that they had the confidence of European peoples desirous only of further integration. In the wake of the failed referenda for a European Constitution, however, enthusiasts of European Union can no longer be certain that their enterprise will succeed. The European Union, once strong and united, seems now an entity teetering on the edge of collapse. The reasons for such a dramatic shift are, of course, wide-ranging. Yet I would suggest that a great part of the general European disillusionment with European Union has come about as a result of the actions of the Europeanists themselves. Over the last decades, European officials have exhibited a frightfully high incidence of revisionism in their literature. This practice, I argue, has caused many Europeans to question the integrity of the project of European Union. For my presentation, I intend to undertake a close study of a selection of documents published by the European Communities. In this endeavour, I will compare and contrast the messages imparted in different editions of these works and consider the semiotic significance of the textual and non-textual language appearing therein. In this manner, I hope to achieve two aims. First, I mean to add a corrective element to a literature that, guided by a teleological interpretation of integration, endows integration with”logic" to be found only in hindsight. Second, I intend to examine the many meanings that the EU has had over its history and assess how closely policy has adhered to the ideological goals of prominent Europeanists. In sum, I hope to shed light on the fundamental disconnect between advocates of Europe and the "man on the street" and help establish a dialogue which may contribute to resolving the current impasse within the European Union.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (27) ◽  
pp. 45-62
Author(s):  
Mikel Urquijo ◽  
Joseba Agirreazkuenaga

The aim of this paper is to take part in the debate about the future of national biographies today. In this sense, we analyse national biographical dictionaries as instruments for the creation of national memory and as a foundation in the processes of building nation-states. We analyse the origin and development of national biographical dictionaries in the context of the evolution of biography. We initially observe the elements that condition dictionaries: the geographical and chronological framework in which they are developed, the criteria for selecting the personages whose biographies are to be written and for selecting biographers, the structure and sources of the biographies. At present, this model of dictionaries and national memory is being put into question by the emergence of new nationalisms and by the superseding of nations in new supranational bodies like the European Union. Finally, based on the above, we set out a proposal for renovating these works in the XXI century.


2021 ◽  
pp. 27-34
Author(s):  
Victor Juc ◽  
◽  
Maria Diacon ◽  
Anastasia Catan ◽  
◽  
...  

The study represents the analysis of the legal support for the creation and functioning of the European Union and offers the possibility to know its structure, contributing to the definition and understanding of the objectives of the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties on the organization and functioning of the European Union. Nice and the Convention on the Future of Europe and providing information on the new system of organization and functioning of the Union in the light of the provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon.


2001 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Michael Werz

Recent debates about the future of the European Union have focusedin large part on institutional reforms, the deficit of democratic legitimacy,and the problem of economic and agrarian policies. As importantas these issues may be, the most crucial question at the momentis not whether Europe will prevail as a union of nations or as a thoroughlyintegrated federal structure. What is of much greater concernis the fact that political structures and their corresponding politicaldiscourses have lagged far behind the social changes occurring inEuropean societies. The pivotal transformation of 1989 has not beengrasped intellectually or politically, even though its results areincreasingly visible in both the east and west.


2004 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Anthony Arnull

The purpose of this article is to consider the effect of the draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe on the European Court of Justice (ECJ). At the time of writing, the future of the draft Constitution is somewhat uncertain. Having been finalised by the Convention on the Future of Europe in the summer of 2003 and submitted to the then President of the European Council, it formed the basis for discussion at an intergovernmental conference (IGC) which opened in October 2003. Hopes that the text might be finalised by the end of the year were dashed when a meeting of the IGC in Brussels in December 2003 ended prematurely amid disagreement over the weighting of votes in the Council. However, it seems likely that a treaty equipping the European Union with a Constitution based on the Convention’s draft will in due course be adopted and that the provisions of the draft dealing with the ECJ will not be changed significantly. Even if either assumption proves misplaced, those provisions will remain of interest as reflecting one view of the position the ECJ might occupy in a constitutional order of the Union.


Author(s):  
S. Pogorelskaya

The article describes the transformation of German policy towards the European Union after the reunification of Germany, German proposals to overcome the Euro crisis of 2010–2011 and the future role of Germany in the EU.


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