Drafting the Charter in the Convention

Abstract

The legitimacy of the EU and its functioning have been a concern for major actors at the European level for a considerable period. How does the initiative to draft a special document of fundamental rights for the European Union fit into this ongoing ‘quest for legitimacy’? The argument here is that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, despite the fact that it was initially only proclaimed as a political declaration, was a significant development for the legitimation of the European Union because the Charter process went beyond a debate about the specific rights-protection aspect of the EU regime, and brought into the open a whole host of questions concerning the legitimacy of the EU polity which had previously been debated mainly under very specific circumstances (during the IGCs) by a very small group of nationally legitimated EU policy makers (mostly national ministers and/or heads of state or government). The Charter Convention not only broadened and publicised this debate, but it also found a number of new solutions to old problems, and most importantly established the Convention method as a new tool for debating issues of ‘constitutional’ significance for the EU.