The economic crisis and the constitutional crisis in Europe

Abstract

This paper proposes a «constitutional interpretation of the crisis» against the «economic interpretation of the constitution» that it is being imposed in the European public debate. This economic interpretation, which is questioned by us, produces the deactivation of the core functions of the Constitution in a number of European countries. On a formal level, because of the restrictions of pluralism that are generated as a consequence of an economic narrative which presents itself as the only choice possible. Those limitations impedes the Constitution from performing its core function of articulating social and political conflicts through the imposition of preconditions to the democratic process that lead to the denial of the conflict. On a material level, this economic interpretation is producing significant restrictions of constitutional rights. National constitutional systems are suffering then a loss of democratic quality which, in the final instance, is propelled by the lack of democratic density in the European public sphere. But the solutions can no longer be national: it is necessary to rethink Constitutional Law from the European supranational level as to rethink Europe from Constitutional Law. The recovery of a pluralist democracy and the functions of Constitutional Law has to be based upon a democratic European framework.