In the Name of Simplification: Coping with Constitutional Conflicts in the Convention on the Future of Europe

The creation of the European Convention gave rise to yet another academic dispute on the logic of constitutional change in the European Union. Some argued that this would be remembered as a turning point in the history of European integration: after half a century of piecemeal and instrumental reforms, the EU seemed to have reached its constitutional moment. A debate on the finalité politique would finally take place, within a new framework that might well shape future changes. Executive officials and diplomats could no longer ignore national parliamentarians and MEPs, and they would be forced to argue, this time and in the future, in the eyes of the public. In turn, this might compel them to agree on a more ambitious and comprehensive constitutional settlement. Others, on the contrary, predicted that the Convention would be forced to anticipate the intergovernmental conference that would follow, and that the govern-ments that had reluctantly accepted this new process would prove able, in the course of the negotiation, to bring it back under their control. In this article, I will argue that these two lines of analysis can be reconciled. It is dif-ficult to deny that the Convention was merely a new bargain among Member States