April 11, 1998. The people of North Belfast got their first look at the Good Friday Belfast Peace Agreement signed by all parties at Stormont. John Giles/ Press Association. All rights reserved.
When Europe set about drafting for itself a constitution in the winter of early 2002, it did so to great fanfare accompanying the belief that Europe in the pioneering spirit stood on the precipice of a historic moment in its history. The belief that the Old Continent was about to have its own ‘Philadelphia Moment’ was not only allowed to circulate in public discourse, it was actively propagated by a political class[1] who were determined to crown their fifty-year long project to transform Europe, completed through the invocation of that ancient act of political metamorphosis; the constitution.
Yet what in fact occurred was one of the greatest acts of theatre in the history of European politics; what was being drafted at the Laeken Convention, contrary to popular belief, was not a constitution in any meaningful sense of the word, but another treaty. One far more streamlined and sophisticated than the seventeen which preceded it and their thirty-six annexed protocols. Nonetheless a compromise between Heads of State and Government, negotiated far from the eyes of their electorates, and far from the reach of the democratic institutions designed to hold presidents and ministers accountable and set the political agenda. The European peoples’ place in this Union has always been on the side-lines – outside the halls of power and below the grand summits.
