Florence Deloche-Gaudez

Is there anyone in charge?: leadership in EU constitutional negotiations

In the 1970s, Andrew Shonfield described European integration as a ‘Journey to an Unknown Destination’ (Shonfield 1973), to highlight the uncertainties surrounding what Joschka Fischer was later to call the finalites politiques of the process. If anything, the description is more accurate today than it was at that time. The resounding ‘No’ votes of the French and Dutch people signal that a very deep malaise is developing in the population of EU member states. The derailing of the Constitutional Treaty and the European Council’s difficulty in deciding on a common response to this unexpected development have left the Union without a clear road map for the first time since the launching of the single market program by the Delors Commission. This is not the place to discuss the factors that have brought about this scenario. The contributions to this volume shed light on one possible cause of the current situation: the weakness of leadership in the EU, not least on the occasion of the ‘grand bargains’ that are supposed to set the course to be followed by the Union.