The Dynamics of the Two-Level Process of Constitution Building

Abstract

On 18 June 2004, the governmental delegates of the 25 member state adopted the text for a European constitution. The original text has been prepared by the 207 members and 13 observers of the Laeken Convention, of which only 66 had the right to vote on the final document. Members with the right to vote included the President Valérie Giscard d’Estaing and the two Vice-Presidents of the Convention, 15 delegates of the member state governments (one from each country), 30 representatives of the national parliaments (two from each member state), 16 members of the European Parliament, and two officials from the Commission. The representatives of 13 accession countries (one government representative and two delegates of the national parliament from each country) were not entitled to vote but were invited to discuss and participate in the negotiations. After one year of hectic and intense debates these delegates of the Laeken Convention accepted a draft text on a constitutional treaty on 13 June 2003 which found support of all 25 member states in a modestly revised version. The French and Dutch electorate voted against the constitutional project in Spring 2005, but the question remains how to explain the survival of the Laeken proposal in light of previous attempts to reform the EU’s obsolete institutional framework which failed at the Amsterdam (1997) and Nice (2000) IGC among 15 member states.