ABSTRACT
This book began by arguing that the EU in the twenty-first century faces a crossroads in its history, and a crisis of legitimacy. The rejection of the Constitutional Treaty by the French and Dutch and the problems of budgetary reform serve to underline the research findings and arguments contained in the preceding chapters. It was hoped by those who drafted and approved the text that the ratification of a European ‘constitution’ would provide a powerful impetus towards dealing with the ‘democratic deficit’ and the crisis of legitimacy facing the EU. But this was not to be. It is apparent that the failure of the Constitutional Treaty to live up to the various expectations of its proponents has vividly exposed the problems which this book has explored: the lack of a European public sphere and the issues of democratization and legitimacy in conditions of multi-level governance. Indeed, this volume goes some way to explaining why the fate of the constitution should not have come as such a great surprise.
