From Constitutional Pyramid to Constitutional Pluralism: The Transformation of the European Constitutional Imaginary in Context

Abstract

This paper explores the recent history of the European constitutional imaginary. It argues that the constitutional imaginary that solidified during the early decades of European integration has been deeply challenged in the 1990s, with the emergence of a body of thought known as ‘constitutional pluralism’. In order to do so, the paper first reconstructs the original constitutional imaginary of the EEC. It then analyses the socio-historical context of the emergence of constitutional pluralism, on the one hand, and clarifies how these ideas contributed to redefining the European constitutional imaginary, on the other.

The paper was written as part of a workshop organized in the framework of the Project IMAGINE, which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 803163).

Note: The paper was written as part of a workshop organized in the framework of the Project IMAGINE, which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 803163).

Keywords: European constitution imaginary, constitutional pluralism