ABSTRACT
Simplifying governance The complexity of EU governance as ‘described’ in the convoluted language of the treaties confirms the citizens’ sense of a remote and inaccessible polity.1 The problem was duly acknowledged at Laeken, but rectifying it was no easy matter forthis is a polity caught between quite different, indeed competing ideas about governance. This much is apparent in the Constitutional Treaty’s attempt to tidy up an intricate and for most outsiders, and even for some insiders, Byzantine procedures. The Constitutional Treaty set out to condense layers of legal archaeology accumulated from previous treaties into a more cogent structure: Part I outlines the Union’s constitutional architecture and was divided into nine separate Titles; Part II incorporates the Charter on Fundamental Rights; Part III refers to the policies and functioning of the Union; and Part IV lists general and final provisions.
