EU Constitutionalisation Revisited – Redressing a Central Narrative in European Studies

The constitutionalization of the European Union has since the early 1990s become a truism in European studies. The European Court of Justice – so the story goes - transformed the Treaties of Rome into a transnational constitution by means of its case law and as a result turned legal integration into one of the central dynamics of the integration process.

This paper revisits the constitutionalisation theory drawing on the insights from emerging historical research and newer strands of political science research. We find that the conventional constitutional narrative is less convincing when confronted with the new evidence from historical and political science research. New historical research show that member state governments, administrations and courts have generally been rather reluctant to embrace the constitutional project of the ECJ. Furthermore, implementation and application of European law are significantly less efficient than generally assumed in the scholarly debate. European politics, the ECJ and its case law have far from judicialized European decision-making to the extent often claimed. Concluding, we reject the notion that the ECJ has successfully constitutionalised the EU, emphasising instead the inherent tensions in the process, which continue to complicate the efficiency of European law.