Constituent power

Bruno De Witte

Chapter 19 in Research Handbook on European Constitutional Law, 2026, pp 338-346 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Many legal concepts developed in national constitutional law can usefully be transposed by analogy to the EU legal order. However, the concept of constituent power does not translate well to EU law. In the dominant tradition of continental Europe, the constituent power is held by the people and the political and judicial institutions exercise their power in name of the people. The view that constitutional authority derives from the people is hardly plausible when applied to the EU, since the existence of a European people is chimerical and ascribing the EU's constitution to the collective will of all the peoples of its Member States seems contrived.

Keywords: Collective constituent power; Secondary constituent power; European people; Treaty revision; Convention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781802207866
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