Imaginary is both a goal and a map charting the path to that ideally imagined socio-political construction. Ideas matter and, indeed, human beings make things with words, especially in the social reality, but there is no direct or linear trajectory between the concepts, on which a given imaginary is built, and its capacity to actual self-realization. While we cannot know in advance what works, the historical experience can, however, teach us what does not. This article argues that the dominant EU constitutional imaginary, which has been based on the US comparative experience, did not work for the European Union. Still, the latter is faced, and increasingly so, with difficult constitutional questions. These ought to be addressed constitutionally, following an alternative, better-fitted constitutional imaginary.

You can download the working paper at the SSRN.

The paper was later published in (2021) 46 European Law Review 3-19 and discussed by Jan Komárek with Gráinne de Búrca and Neil Walker at The Academic Forum of the New University (video).