ABSTRACT
The following considerations will present two different historical meanings of the concept of constitution and some of its institutional implications for the present discussion. But why is an historical reconstruction of this term of any use for the actual constitutional debate in Europe? An answer to this question can be given easily: historical considerations are relevant for this debate just because the debate claims to be a constitutional debate. There are many good reasons to believe that the European integration presents a unique development, that the Treaties of Rome created an entirely new type of public organization, and that this organization is, therefore, not approachable with traditional categories. This would mean that the next step of the European integration taken by the next amendment of the Treaties could be analysed without any further reference to traditional categories like constitution. But on a descriptive level there already seem to be too many elements of the European integration that remind the observer of traditional constitutional orders. On a normative level there is a strong desire to deliver certain institutional virtues to the European integration that are connected with the idea of a constitution. In such a context we also have to take into account an historical perspective to understand what we mean by these references. In a philosopher’s words: ‘Grasping a concept is mastering the use of a word-and uses of words are a paradigm of the sort of thing that must be understood historically’ (Brandom 2000:27).
