Revitalization of EU Constitutionalism

Abstract

Imaginary is both a goal and a map charting the path to that ideally imagined socio-political construction. Ideas matter and, indeed, human beings make things with words, especially in the social reality, but there is no direct or linear trajectory between the concepts, on which a given imaginary is built, and its capacity to actual self-realization. While we cannot know in advance what works, the historical experience can, however, teach us what does not. This article argues that the dominant EU constitutional imaginary, which has been based on the US comparative experience, did not work for the European Union. Still, the latter is faced, and increasingly so, with difficult constitutional questions. These ought to be addressed constitutionally, following an alternative, better-fitted constitutional imaginary.

The paper was written as part of a workshop organized in the framework of the Project IMAGINE, which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 803163). The research for this paper has benefited from the support of the Slovenian Research Agency within the framework of the research project No. J5-1791 (A) An integral theory on the future of the European Union.

Keywords: Socio-political construction, self-realization, EU constitutional imaginary, European Union, constitutional imaginary