Book excerpt: This book discusses the future steps in European integration, which are to be taken after the likely entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2010. Against the background of the drafting of this new treaty, and the constitutional discussion within EU law during the last decades, the book questions whether the Treaty and leading EU law theorists have really grasped and addressed the true future challenges of European integration. Instead of always trying to balance supra-nationalism and inter-governmentalism, and seeing the EU as less democratic than a nation-state, at least the doctrine ought to embrace the most characteristic trait of European integration - namely supra-national decision-making - and discuss its future potential. In the book, recent changes in EU constitutional law and constitutional theory are observed. Leading EU theorists - such as Weiler, Majone, and Habermas - are critically analyzed, with a view to their inability to see the EU today for what it really is. Finally, alternative strategies for the next decades are discussed, which may make the EU work more efficiently and, at the same time, bridge the gap between the Union and its citizens.