An alternative constitutional treaty for the European Union

We propose an alternative to the Constitutional Treaty drafted by the European Convention. Our proposal effectively limits the domain of government at the Union level. It takes the incentives of the European public actors into account. We propose a second chamber of European Parliament composed of delegates of the parliaments of the member states and a second court composed of delegates of the highest courts of the member states. These institutions will be the guardians of the subsidiarity principle. The principle of the separation of powers is implemented by abolishing the Commission's monopoly of legislative initiative and by curtailing the Council's legislative role. Treaty amendments will not be drafted by an intergovernmental conference but by an inter-parliamentary conference. We propose to change the method of financing and introduce referenda.