Whether the Constitutional Treaty will enter into effectand#191;or the prospect of
the EU having a constitutional text is pushed back to a much more distant
future the ratification of an EU Constitution raises questions of fundamental
importance from the point of view of national constitutional law. Whilst
constitutions have traditionally been linked to states, more recent theories,
such as post-national, multi-level, or intertwined constitutionalism,
recognise the possibility for a constitution to exist in a non-state context.
In this very valuable book, which focuses on the ratification of the European
Constitutional Treaty, twenty-eight authorities in constitutional and EU law
examine the extent to which such theories have made inroads in national
constitutional thinking.

The contributors examine the debates and official documents of the political
institutions that have been involved in the ratification process in the Member
States, as well as constitutional court decisions and scholarly discourse.
They also cover a range of closely related issues, such as the amendment of
national constitutions, ratification referendums, and the implications of the
codification of the principle of primacy in the European Constitution. The
book includes reports from 17 EU Member States, as well as a view from a
candidate country, Croatia. These reports, along with other papers on the
nature and content of the Constitutional Treaty, consider the following issues:

• 
  the process and legal framework of ratification in each of the examined Member
  States;
  


• 
  the novel category of constitutional treaty;
  


• 
  constitutional elements in existing EC/EU treaties;
  


• 
  types of constitutions and constitutionalism, and constitutions in non-state
  contexts;
  


• 
  the implications of the primacy clause;
  


• 
  ratification referendums;
  


• 
  eurosceptic fears of the development of a super-state.
  

The book is based on the proceedings of an international conference that was
held in Tallinn, Estonia, in November 2005.

By assessing the implications of the European Constitution from the
perspective of national constitutional law, this book fills an important gap
in the literature. It also makes a contribution to the emergence of a true
European-wide constitutional debate, by providing both researchers and
policy-makers with comparative information regarding the constitutional
aspects of ratification in Member States. It will be of absorbing interest and
value for years to come as the European constitutional debate continues.