The Constitutionalization of Europe, integration problems and national preferences

(Francesca Donfrancesco, University of Rome Tor Vergata)

The Constitutionalization of Europe is fundamental to understand the current state of the European Union. An ongoing process that has seen its start with the Treaty of Nice until the recent treaty signed in Lisbon last 13 December. Starting from historical background, this study aims to recognize how and why a State decides to get involved in a supranational "construction", which is EU. From the comparison of different approaches to the process of integration, we consider the goals that each state pursues and the impact of Europeanization on national policy of MS. The purposes usually are of economic and geopolitical nature, but than they change during specific negotiations in outputs. In most of the negotiations between states these opposite positions became a real cause of failure.

The key points of European Union history have passed through the interstate bargaining. So we will examine a case study of a difficult negotiation about approving the Constitutional Treaty characterized by opposite national positions: negotiations in the IGC of 2003. It ended with the failure of the Italian Presidency. The study tries to explain the reasons for the negative outcome of negotiations in several steps from various sources.

After that, we will deepen the current state of Constitutionalization. Starting from the comparison between the Constitutional treaty, rejected by the negative referendum of Holland and France, and the recent Treaty of Lisbon, in order to understand if Europe is coming back or not.

In addition, a controversial point, that concludes the research, is the public dimension of this debate. To understand if people desire this Constitution and if they feel themselves European citizens, it will be analysed some statistical data provided in these last three years by Eurobarometer.

2008 is a fundamental year for this matter, so we hope that the signature of the Lisbon treaty is just the starting point of this long process.