Publication

The negative results of the referenda on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (ECT) in France and the Netherlands have thrown the European Union into a deep crisis. The options should be carefully and unemotionally weighed up. Should the EU collectively "put itself in detention" in order to improve or complement the Treaty? Or will it plump for "repeating the year", attempting on the basis of the Treaty of Nice to pursue individual reforms from the ECT in a sub-constitutional manner? Or is an "expulsion" thinkable, whereby those states unwilling to ratify the ECT separate themselves from an EU regulated by the ECT?