Toward Self-Sustaining Stability? How the Constitutional Treaty Would Enhance Forms of Institutional and National Balance

Abstract

The Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (“CT”) strengthens some of the federal features of the future European political order, and hence makes it more appropriate to apply standards of assessment from federal thought. Stable and legitimate federal political orders require multiple forms of balancing. Many of the changes in the CT are improvements on the Nice Treaty in these regards, and the CT would therefore go some way toward creating a European political order more likely to both merit and facilitate trust and trustworthiness. Such trust is crucial if the institutions are to foster willing support and ‘dual loyalty’ among the citizenry and authorities toward both one’s own member state and toward the union as a whole.

Keywords: European Union, federalism, Constitution for Europe, European political order, Treaty of Nice, Normative political theory