Historians, political scientists, economists and lawyers alike have suggested the "idea of crises as catalysts for progress" and conceptualized "the history of European integration around the assumption that European integration is a series of continuous efforts to conceive appropriate responses in reaction to contingently changing challenges to all EU Member states". When the European Union is described as a constitutional community, one might assume that in its constitutional shell Europe's thus far unfinished community of law has reached its final stage and gained its finished shape. The European Union, which step by step has already transformed into such a constitutional community over past decades, is still in the process of transformation, facing both alarming drawbacks and hope-raising successes. A Citizens' Europe is admittedly – in facing the history of the integration process inclusive of all its political shortcomings – a challenging reconstruction. Recently, the European Union was confronted with rule-of-law-related crisis events in some of the Member States.