The current treaties and the earlier constitution
Does the European Union need a constitution? Legally, the EU already has a constitutional order. Its treaties define the Union's institutions, powers, values, decision-making procedures, rights, and relationship with member countries. The Court of Justice interprets that law, and EU legislation can bind governments and citizens within the competences the treaties confer.
What Europe does not have is one concise, ratified document that citizens commonly recognise as their democratic constitution. The current settlement is distributed across the Treaty on European Union, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, protocols, declarations, accession treaties, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, case law, and later amendments. It works as law, but it is difficult to understand as a public covenant.
Europe tried once before. The Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe was signed in 2004, but it was never ratified after voters rejected it in referendums in France and the Netherlands. The later Lisbon Treaty retained a number of institutional changes while abandoning the constitutional title and symbols. That history cannot be treated as an inconvenience to ignore. It showed that constitutional Europe must be argued for publicly, not delivered as elite packaging.
What a democratic constitution should contain
A new European constitution should therefore begin with democratic clarity. It should state which responsibilities belong to the federal level, which remain national, regional, or local, and which are shared. It should make subsidiarity enforceable, protect languages and self-government, and give courts a clear standard for stopping federal overreach.
It should also complete the democratic chain. Citizens should elect a legislature able to propose and pass federal laws, choose or clearly determine the executive, approve federal revenue and spending, and remove leaders who lose confidence. A chamber representing citizens and a chamber representing the member countries could balance population with territorial equality without preserving a veto for every routine decision.
Fundamental rights must sit at the centre rather than in the footnotes. The Charter of Fundamental Rights already binds EU institutions and member states when they implement EU law. A federal constitution should preserve and strengthen that protection, guarantee independent courts, and make democratic backsliding a constitutional question for the whole federation rather than a diplomatic quarrel between governments.
Power, ratification and public consent
Constitutional language should be honest about power. Europe needs enough shared authority to act on continental security, climate, energy, infrastructure, the single market, migration, technology, and common public goods. It does not need one ministry controlling every school timetable, cultural institution, health service, or town hall. Federalism is credible when the centre is capable in a limited field and restrained everywhere else.
Ratification would need more than signatures at a summit. A convention with representatives of citizens, national parliaments, governments, and the European Parliament should publish alternatives, hear criticism, and explain trade-offs. The final choice must follow lawful national procedures, but Europeans should debate the same constitutional question in a genuinely shared public campaign.
Federal Europa supports a written European constitution because common power deserves common democratic authorship. The goal is not a ceremonial document or a centralising slogan. It is a readable settlement that tells every European: these are your rights, these are the limits of government, these are the decisions we make together, and this is how you can change those who govern in your name.