The Constitution and the Citizens – (Not) Much Ado about Nothing. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series, Vol. 4 No. 7, August 2004

Thiel, Markus. (2004) The Constitution and the Citizens – (Not) Much Ado about Nothing. Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series, Vol. 4 No. 7, August 2004.

Abstract

While the Convention on the Future of Europe and its product, the Draft Constitution, might be considered a successful endeavor by many European policy-makers and other academic and socio-economic elites, it received little positive attention by the citizens. Aside from being a highly specialized and, for the ordinary citizen, complicated matter, few people actually are aware of the Convention process and the content of the Constitution. In this paper, I will locate the public awareness of the Constitution among the EU’s population, lay out some basic ideas about the democratic legitimacy this act entails and look at ways that could facilitate the Constitution’s acceptance in the future. Finally, I argue that, given the institutional structure of the EU and organizational constraints of the Convention, so far the democratic legitimacy has been sufficient but still awaits the challenge of ratification.