The European Convention and constitution making in Philadelphia

The 1787 Philadelphia Convention that drafted the American Constitution and the ongoing European Convention headed by Valery Giscard D’Estaing, which is widely regarded as likely to lead to adoption of a constitution for the European Union, were both set in motion to confront the same daunting task. Indeed, the thirteen confederated American states operating under the 1781 Articles of Confederation, much like the fifteen member states of the European Union laboring under a series of treaties, from that of Rome to that of Nice, were struggling to maintain and carry forward their joint enterprise in the face of deficiencies in the existing institutional framework. Moreover, these deficiencies were all the more acute as the thirteen original American states had to prepare for incorporation of an array of new states that would propel the American union throughout a vast continent much as the constitutional challenges are greatly magnified for the European fifteen as they prepare to become the twenty-five and eventually perhaps to include all states within Europe. But there is at least one striking difference between the American constitutional project of 1787 and its current European counterpart. The American project has unquestionably succeeded—albeit that the road to success was by no means always clear or smooth, as best evidenced by the attempted secession of the southern states that resulted in the bloody Civil War of the 1860s—now that the United States is a well integrated and powerful, federal republic and that the original thirteen states have expanded to fifty, throughout the continent and even beyond. It is unclear, however, whether the European constitutional project will also succeed. As viewed from American shores, not only does it seem uncertain whether the European Convention will manage to create a genuine and full-f ledged constitution for Europe, but even if it does, it will be a long time before we can judge whether the European Union will cohere into a smoothly working constitutional democracy after completing its contemplated expansion.