ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts of key concepts discussed in preceeding chapters of this book. The book describes the growing prominence of populist and extremist parties can be explained partly by the impoverishment of national political spheres caused by the peculiar divide between European level 'policy without politics' and national level 'politics without policy'. It also illustrates the fact, seized upon by opportunistic anti-Europeanists such as Marine Le Pen, that the symbolic value of the integration project has turned negative for many European citizens, for whom the European Union (EU) is a meddlesome and mystifying overlord, rather than a guardian of common European values and custodian of a common European future. The chapter identified that like the Constitutional Treaty (CT), the common currency project may be analysed in terms of the symbolic and functional dimensions of constitutionalism. The CT was drafted with the interrelated aims of filling the symbolic lacuna of EU constitutionalism and facilitating the growth of an incipient European demos.
