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The Treaty of Lisbon has advanced European integration and brought about many institutional changes. But to the eminent German philosopher Jürgen Habermas it is a process that has stalled halfway and which is threatened to be reversed or remain unfinished due to forces of globalization and re-nationalization that pull into different directions. Since the 1990s, Habermas was among those most vocal in support of a European Constitution. In many of his works Habermas focused on the question how European integration can be designed in order to establish a supranational democracy without creating a federal state and provide the project of the EU with the highest possible level of legitimacy. The article investigates the individual elements which Habermas deemed necessary to secure that legitimacy. This involves a number of concepts that are central to Habermas’s thinking on Europe: “constitutional patriotism,” the “double sovereign,” the “European public sphere,” and a “Europe of different speeds.” This study analyzes the meaning which these concepts have in Habermas’s approach and it gives a broad overview over the critical responses to his ideas on Europe and the debate on the future of Europe which was initiated by Habermas. It concludes with the finding that Habermas may be overly optimistic about the prospects of a further federalization and democratization of the EU.
