Since the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, the principle of subsidiarity is to govern the exercise of powers between the European Community and the Member States in areas that do not fall within the exclusive competence of the Community. According to the treaty provision, the principle means that the Community can only take action if and insofar as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can therefore, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achieved by the Community. A similar provision is now part of the draft ‘European Constitution’ 2003; it merely adds that Member State action can be taken at the national, the regional and the local level. Even without this useless supplement, the definition of subsidiarity looks fairly complicated.

Purse power has been a hot item throughout the Union's history and was again much fought over during the Convention and the Intergovernmental Conference. The Constitution has indeed produced a number of significant changes. What makes the subject so hot? It is not just the money. The Union's budget is no more than that of a single smaller Member State. Most of the expenses are, moreover, fixed. That the budget should be so hot is probably because fighting over money is a good test of strengths generally (with a neat and immediate outcome). This explains the role the purse has always played in constitutional history. True to the grand tradition then, as soon as the European Parliament was given powers in the matter (1975) and got directly elected (1979), it had fights over the EU budget. This was mainly a wedge to break a share for itself in the legislative process. In the years that followed, it has in fact gained more legislative than financial powers. And the Union has been kept short, not on legislative powers but on money.

Both the EU- and the EC-Treaties refer in prominent places to the establishment of economic and monetary union (Articles 2 EU and EC). This union is mentioned as one of the principal means of achieving the Union's and the Community's economic and social objectives. Such a prominent place is not allotted it in the Constitution. In its effort to separate the basic provisions from the other provisions in the treaties, the Convention decided to retain only the European Union's objectives in the actual constitutional part. The concrete activities pertaining to the economic and monetary union, as well as its ‘guiding principles’ of stable prices, sound public finances and monetary conditions and a sustainable balance of payments were relegated to Part III that deals with the Union's policies.

The provision relating to the adoption, ratification and entry into force of the Treaty establishing the Constitution for Europe is probably one of the most difficult ones, both in legal and political terms. It is supposed to define the legal nature and quality of the entire EU process in its present and future phase. There is an inherent ambiguity about the legal nature of the treaty, which is already apparent in the title, and there are profound political implications as well. Is the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe a treaty or a constitution? Can it be both or neither? These are hard questions indeed.

Many proponents of the Constitutional Treaty admit that this document is far from perfect, indeed quite disappointing in many respects, but argue that the Treaty should be seen as a step in the long process of European integration rather than an end-point. It will be possible to learn from the failings of the new Treaty and correct them later on, just like this Treaty itself has corrected some of the mistakes, and fill in some of the blanks left by earlier Treaty revisions.

Since the ratification of the Treaty of Maastricht, the ‘democratic deficit’ is used as a term to describe the democratic deficiencies of the European integration process. What is the influence of the citizens on the process of governmental and constitutional decision-making? Due to the distance between the powers of the Community and the nation state, the power of the executive over parliamentary bodies and the fact that a lot of decision-making takes place behind closed doors, greater democracy and transparency is needed.