In 2001, the Laeken Declaration empowered a group of experts with the drafting of a constitutional treaty for the consideration of Member States. In 2005, the resulting Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe was ratified by 18 Member-States, but its rejection by referendum in France and the Netherlands marked its termination.
We are convinced that both the content and format of this constitutional treaty led to its downfall. With its four hundred and forty-eight articles, not only did it give everyone something to disagree with, but it tried too hard to set in stone all of the EU’s complexity. Simply put, it was unreadable.
