Voigt, Stefan --- "A Constitution Like Any Other? Comparing the European Constitution with Nation State Constitutions" [2012] ELECD 666; in Eger, Thomas; Schäfer, Hans-Bernd (eds), "Research Handbook on the Economics of European Union Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Economics of European Union Law

Editor(s): Eger, Thomas; Schäfer, Hans-Bernd

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849801003

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: A Constitution Like Any Other? Comparing the European Constitution with Nation State Constitutions

Author(s): Voigt, Stefan

Number of pages: 18

Extract:

1 A constitution like any other? Comparing the
European constitution with nation state
constitutions
Stefan Voigt* 1




1 INTRODUCTION

The Treaty of Lisbon went into force in December 2009. From an economic point of view,
this treaty is equivalent with the constitutional framework of the European Union. Its
institutional traits are, hence, analyzed in this chapter.
The Treaty of Lisbon is the way EU governments have coped with the failure of the
attempt to install a fully fledged constitution, due to the negative referendum results in
both France and the Netherlands. The Treaty of Lisbon was subject to referendums in
only one member state, namely Ireland. Ironically, it possibly owes its ratification to
the global financial crisis that occurred in 2008 and 2009: after having turned down the
Lisbon treaty once, the Irish opted in its favor as soon as they realized that their own
country was in deep trouble and that the support of the EU might be crucial for getting
it out of the crisis.
The financial crisis is further evidence for the precarious nature of constitutions. Before
some members of the Eurozone got into serious trouble, there was unanimous consent
that the Treaty of Lisbon contained a very clear and unambiguous no bail-out clause.
After a protective shield worth 750 billion was created in May 2010, we all know better.
This chapter provides an evaluation of both the genesis and the content of the Treaty of
Lisbon. The normative benchmarks on which the evaluations are based ...