Home > The Constitution

Towards the end of the 20th century, it became clear for a large number of European leaders that the EU required a re-foundation and renovation. From an initial agenda that included the distribution of competencies, simplification and the incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Convention on the Future of Europe produced a fully-fledged proposal for a Constitution or Constitutional Treaty for Europe. Italian and Irish Presidencies had led the negotiation and final approval of this document. On 29 October 2004, the Heads of State or Government of the 25 Member States and the 3 candidate countries signed the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe which will then need to be ratified by all 25 member states of the enlarged Union.

Preparation Stage

Negotiation Stage

Ratification Stage

Text of European Constitution

Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, Official Journal of the European Union, C 310, Volume 47, 16.12.2004. (HTML/PDF)

Full text version (PDF) of 29.10.04

The Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe - online version by Brit Helle Aarskog of the CIDEL project. This digital version is hypertextual and includes 1 008 digital cross-references between Articles, Protocols and Declarations. (French version)

EUABC, Reader-friendly edition of the EU Constitution

Bibliography