AS THEY examine the wreckage of the European constitution, its promoters must be wondering just what they have done.

They said it would unite the EU, but it is now split as never before. They said it would bring the EU closer to its citizens, but a “tsunami” of Euroscepticism is sweeping the Continent. They said it would make the EU a world power, but the Union is now crippled by political crisis. The European constitution seems certain to enter history, but not as intended. Rather than being the crowning achievement of the construction of Europe, it is its nemesis: a lesson in hubris.

Europe’s first constitution was launched on a wave of ambition and good intentions. In the splendour of the Laeken Palace in Brussels, EU leaders gathered in December 2001 to ponder the growing public disillusionment with their European project. Their answer was the Laeken declaration, which proclaimed: “The European institutions must be brought closer to its citizens.”

Their solution was the constitution, the long-held ambition of European federalists. A convention of 20 national and European parliamentarians was set up under Valéry Giscard D’Estaing, the former French President.

The aim was to bring the complex mish-mash of treaties that govern the EU into one simple document, to set out clearly its powers and how it operates. Despite its democratic pretensions, however, M Giscard and his fellow federalists steamrollered through their vision of a united, centralised Europe, transferring ever more powers from national governments to Brussels, giving the EU its first permanent president and foreign minister and turning the Union into a legal entity that could sign treaties on its members behalf.

M Giscard, the embodiment of hauteur, loved to compare himself to the American founding fathers and his creation to the US Constitution. The latter, however, is just 20 pages; the European version ran to more than 300. The US one can be read and learnt by school children, but even lawyers struggle to understand the EU version.

There was a more fundamental difference, enshrined in the opening lines. The US Constitution starts “We the people”. The European one starts: “His majesty, the King of the Belgians.” The American one was built on a foundation of popular support; the European one was created by its elites.

The constitution has been ratified by nine national parliaments. In those countries that have dared put it to the people the Spanish gave it only the most tepid endorsement, but the French and Dutch resoundingly rejected it.

“The constitution was an overambitious attempt to consolidate an outdated political and economic vision of Europe,” Gisela Stuart, a British member of the constitutional convention, said. “Our mandate was to bring Europe closer to its people and we ended up alienating them even more.”

Times Recommends

• Would you live on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall?
• Wish you were here, says Iraq tourist board
• Russian policeman’s corruption plea to Putin