ABSTRACT
Referendum or parliamentary procedure? The Union’s political leaders met in Rome to initial the Constitutional Treaty on 29 October 2004 in the Sala Degli Orazi e Curazi, where the original Treaty of Rome was signed almost a half century previously. The Constitutional Treaty was a landmark for the EU but ratification was far from straightforward, and made more difficult by the widespread perception that the Constitution was a step into the political unknown, a ‘milestone that marks the fork in the European road’, a significant step-change from previous European treaties.1 One seasoned observer even compared the EU to the Holy Roman Empire, with the Constitution a ‘high watermark of European unification – never again to be reached’.2 This almost certainly exaggerates the significance of the event, for the Constitutional Treaty did not significantly extend the Union’s remit into new policy areas though it did appear to supporters and opponents alike to be an important step and in its way a kind of Rubicon.3 Commentators on both sides of the debate saw ratification as a litmus test of the public’s commitment to the European project, ‘Europe’s way of asking: are you with us or are you against us?’4
