In recent years the European Union (EU) has shifted power from the intergovernmental to the supranational level, and as part of that process a number of initiatives have been taken that both aim at creating the formal legal basis for and raise public support of the EU as a supranational polity. These initiatives can be gathered under the heading of the debate on the future of Europe, a debate that gained momentum in 2000, culminated around 2004, but can in some respects be viewed as a constant feature of the European integration process. This book analyzes the debate on the future of Europe as it was enacted in the crucial period of 2000-2001. The aim of the study is to assess the legitimatory potential of the debate. To this end a theoretical perspective which posits legitimacy, identity, and public opinion as mutually constitutive dynamic processes is established, and rhetorical tools are employed as means of explaining whether and how this constitutive dynamic functions in the case of European public debate. The debate, it is concluded, is a constitutional process without a constitutive moment.

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