The course of constitution-making within Europe has never run less smoothly. At the time of writing, French and Dutch electorates have inflicted a brutal blow upon the aspirations of European sentimentalists everywhere, rejecting the adoption of the draft constitutional treaty for Europe. As a consequence, the putative ‘European Constitution’ – so carefully drawn up by the European Constitutional Convention and so firmly approved by an Intergovernmental Conference – now languishes in limbo, a seemingly unloved and unlovable document, and simple testament to the failure of European parliamentarians and governments to force a true constitutive moment within Europe
