The Lisbon Treaty and national constitutions: Europeanisation and democratic implications

The European Union has affected national constitutions. To some extent, this implies a cosmopolitan turn in their content whilst, in parallel, national constitutions have been adopted to protect their core from the expansive tendency of European integration. The Europeanisation of national constitutions supplements and completes the unfinished process of constitutionalisation of the EU. The two processes can be seen as two sides of the same coin.
This report explores how this has happened and to what extent the model of a constitutional EU is emerging. It does so by investigating several topics, such as the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the processes for national ratification of EU Treaties, and the constitutional discourses in the media.