ABSTRACT
This chapter compares the historical experience of federal constitution making with the so-called 'constitutionalisation of the European Union (EU). It discusses the way the competences have been transferred from member states to the EU with the experience of US, German and Swiss federation. The chapter explores the federal features of the EU's institutional architecture. The notion of 'planning constitution' unmasks the revolutionary character of Europe's 'constitutionalisation' and calls to mind the Yugoslav experience of self-governing federalism. The German Constitutional Court takes credit for detecting the major victim of Monnet's strategy of hidden federalisation, constitutional democracy in member states. According to the most influential EU scholars, the practice of implicit building of Europe's constitution has made Schmitt's challenge practically irrelevant. The consequences of Community competence's extraordinary expansion for member states' autonomy and sovereignty amazed some legal scholars by the beginning of 1990s: The residual powers of the Member States have no reserved status.
