Constitution for Europe

Noting that the European Union was coming to a turning point in its existence, the European Council which met in Laeken, Belgium, on 14 and 15 December 2001 convened the European Convention on the Future of Europe.

The Convention was asked to draw up proposals on three subjects: how to bring citizens closer to the European design and European Institutions; how to organise politics and the European political area in an enlarged Union; and how to develop the Union into a stablising factor and a model in the new world order.

The Convention has identified responses to the questions put in the Laeken declaration:
it proposes a better division of Union and Member State competences;
it recommends a merger of the Treaties and the attribution of legal personality to the Union;


it establishes a simplification of the Union´s instruments of action;
it proposes measures a increase the democracy, transparency and efficiency of the European Union, by developing the contribution of national Parliaments to the legitimacy of the European design, by simplifying the decision-making processes, and by making the functioning of the European Institutions more transparent and comprehensible;


it establishes the necessary measures to improve the structure and enhance the role of each of the Union´s three institutions, taking account, in particular; of the consequences of enlargement.

The Laeken declaration also asked whether the simplification and reorganisation of the Treaties should not pave the way for the adoption of a constitutional text. The Convention´s proceedings ultimately led to the drawing up of a draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, which achieved a broad consensus at the plenary session on 13 June 2003.