| Review of: | Understanding the European Constitution. An Introduction to the EU Constitutional Treaty by C.H. Church, D. Phinnemore |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Rebecca Adler-Nissen |
| Reviewed in: | Journal of Common Market Studies |
| Date accepted online: | 02/11/2007 |
| Published in print: | Volume 45, Issue 2, Pages 515-533 |
Book Reviews
More than an information pamphlet and less than a theoretical treatise,
The first three chapters discuss the background of the Constitutional Treaty, the negotiations in the European Convention and the conflicting interests of the Member States. Following a reprint of Part I, two chapters clarify the meaning of Parts I to IV of the treaty, notably the new Part I is carefully explained article by article. The reader is systematically guided through the text and the pragmatic choices behind the grandiose phrases are elucidated. Thus, for instance, we learn about the hard bargaining on the voting system in the Council of Ministers and the ambiguous article on the supremacy of EU law. The authors give precise corrections to prejudiced evaluations of the document and reject eurosceptic arguments that the treaty establishes a federal superstate. Informative boxes and tables illustrate the new content of the treaty compared to the existing treaties. The authors rightly stress the importance of the inclusion of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. While several of the principles and rights have mainly symbolic value, they introduce a less innocent constitutional rationale to the institutional setup of the EU. The book concludes with a somewhat outdated discussion of different ratification scenarios and a postscript on the French and Dutch referendums.
The claim that the Constitutional Treaty does not form a perfect whole, but a bouquet of more or less intelligible compromises is refreshingly honest. The text is both a treaty and a constitution and it marks a pragmatic evolution not a revolutionary rupture with the existing treaties. With this understanding, the authors successfully pull the document down from the pedestal reserved for lasting constitutions and reveal the unfixed nature of the Constitutional Treaty and EU treaties more generally. The book clearly succeeds in communicating difficult subjects and makes the important transition from merely being an introduction to providing the essential background on the subject. Presented as an 'impartial view', one of the explicit aims of the book is to refute unfounded negative assessments of the treaty. Consequently, some of the arguments seem more relevant to a British than to a Spanish audience. Whether the eurosceptic British voter will buy the book is less certain, but Church and Phinnemore definitely offer a useful and balanced overview to anyone interested in understanding the Constitutional Treaty.