Last week, the President of the European Convention, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, submitted a so-called "skeleton" for a future Constitution of Europe. All the ingredients of a constitution - values, principles, the rights of citizens, the competencies of the Union and its constituent institutions, etc - were included. This document arose despite the fact that the Convention's mandate did not empower the delegates to produce a constitution. According to the Nice Declaration, which I drafted as one of the participating prime ministers, we were only to simplify and restructure the EU's basic treaties.

As the C onvention worked, our mandate was transformed due to various pressures. These came from member countries, from civil society organizations, and from letters, documents, and email messages from across Europe. Democratic pressure changed our mandate. When even the Foreign Minister of Britain, a country happy with its centuries-old "unwritten constitution," claims himself eager to have a written European Constitution, something truly has changed!

Yet, scholars such as Ralph Dahrendorf and Joseph Weiler suggest that a European constitution does not make sense because a democratic constitution presupposes a paramount common identity that is absent in an EU where individual national loyalties still prevail. Others, such as Robert Dahl, argue that democracy requires smaller communities based on shared interests and personal relations. For them, Europe may be too big to forge truly democratic institutions.

Such theoretical objections must be set against the fact Europe already exists - indeed, decisions are made everyday on the European level which determine our lives. We may dislike it, but the EU is part of our system of government, like municipalities, regions, and nation-states. So the question is not whether Europe exists, but whether we are satisfied with the way it functions. If not, can we fix it, and is a constitution the way to do it?

The first problem in need of a "constitutional" solution that is tackled is Europe's clear and unified identity. Not many people realize it, but because of the patchwork of treaties from which today's European institutions arose, "Europe" is not a unitary entity; indeed, the "European Union" and the "European Community" denote two different things.

The Community is the set of institutions created in the 1950's to establish a common market. When we decided later to have a common foreign policy, and to cooperate in judicial and police matters, we invented the Union. The Union deals with foreign policy; the Community with economic integration.

One consequence of this is that agreements with third countries that involve both foreign and economic matters require two distinct treaties: one for the Union, one for the Community. This confuses even trained foreign diplomats who negotiate with Europe. If it confuses them, how befuddling must it be for ordinary citizens? How can a European citizen really identify with Europe if no single "Europe" exists?

Europe's indistinct legal identity has another deleterious impact. If the Community does something that affects someone's rights, he or she can go to court. But if the Union encroaches on your rights, access to a court may be closed because the Union happens to have no legal personality!

The next problem to be tackled - again with constitutional implications - is the anonymous, bureaucratic nature of European legal acts. Criticizing institutions is as essential a part of democracy as protecting enumerated legal rights. But Europe's institutions are hard to criticize because they produce acts that ordinary people cannot name or understand.

In national life, acts of parliaments are called "statutes" or "laws," and these usually have names that you can rally for and against. In the EU we have " regulations," "directives," "decisions," "general guidelines," "common strategies," "common actions," "common positions" - a myriad that only experts can comprehend. When a "directive" is issued, you don't know who is responsible; instead, they are known as, say, "Directive 17.62" (meaning that it is directive no. 17 issued in 1962).

In Italy there is now a controversial statute that will change the rules of criminal procedure in ways that might prove helpful to eminent public figures. Well, the name of Senator Cirami is attached to that bill. By god, we can fight about "the law Cirami"! Would things be the same if the bill were called "Regulation 75"?

Because Europe has so many bodies that legislate - the Council of Ministers, the Council for Agriculture, the Council for Industry, the Council for the Environment, etc. - we cannot know who is doing what and why. We need a single legislative council, a bicameral European Parliament, with one house representing member states, and the other the European electorate.

In this simplified system, legislation will be called legislation, and executive regulations, as in most legal systems, will fill in the gaps in primary legislation. This is a system European citizens will understand.

The draft constitutional document presented last week introduces small but significant changes that may empower Europe's citizens to both identify with and criticize Europe. It calls for a single, unified legal entity. Whether it is called European Union, United States of Europe, United Europe, or something else, it will also provide for a unitary, simplified system of normative acts that will introduce more transparency and accountability.

The institutional structure envisaged by the proposed European Constitution should also reflect and help develop Europe's broader aspirations. Europe must be more than a vehicle of economic integration, which is almost accomplished anyway. At the simplest, we expect Europe to be fair. We expect our social model to be realized. We expect economic and social matters to be connected. We expect Europe to play a role for good in the world.

Of course, roadblocks await. One of them is that more Europe cannot mean a centralized system. Democratic governments are too complicated for that. Getting the proper balance among European, national, regional, and local institutions will be a crucial challenge. But if the people are to ordain a Constitution for Europe, all of their ties and values will need to be respected by that Constitution.