Symposium – Crisis and Constitutional Pluralism in the European Union

The ratification difficulties associated with the Maastricht Treaty — not least the German Bundesverfassungsgericht ’ s (BVerfG) assertion of the supremacy of the German constitution during German ratification 1 — and its creation of a ‘ Europe of Bits and Pieces ’ , 2 signalled a watershed in the European integration project and a move away from the federalist-oriented ‘ permissive consensus ’ which had marked the preceding era. 3 Even if the idea of crisis in European integration was not new, 4 it is no exaggeration to say that Maastricht was the beginning of an era of semi-permanent crisis in European integration. 5 Crisis can, however, be ‘ salutary ’ . 6 The post-Maastricht era was marked by a flour-ishing of creative new thinking about the integration project in the legal academy, offering fresh insights and ideas about European legal integration beyond the con-ventional neo-functionalist and federalist accounts. 7 Perhaps one of the most endur-ing of these new ‘ dynamics ’ of legal integration 8 was MacCormick ’ s constitutional pluralism. When Neil MacCormick first articulated his preliminary thoughts on the