ABSTRACT
It had been predicted that the 1990s would be one of the great defining decades of European integration; the decade when the European 'project' was to evolve from being a glorified free trade zone into a full-blown political union. The 'new' Europe inherited certain ready identities, geographical, historical, and even cultural. Back in 1992, announcement of a European 'citizenship' was intended to be one of the great symbolic moments. 'Citizenship of the Union is hereby established', Union Treaty affirmed. The root of the legitimacy problem, the genesis of the notorious and much debated 'democratic deficit', lies back in 1958, with the inception of European Community. The 'history' of European legal integration describes the incremental creation of a vast jurisprudential empire, as the Court of Justice first moved from establishing certain core principles of constitutional law to the 'convergence' of administrative law principles. Today, lawyers chatter about the merits of a European 'common law', with common commercial, criminal and contract codes.
