A.  Introduction

Constitutional law is special not only for the salient importance of its substance, but also for its concentrated yet open form and terminology. Hardly surprising, therefore, the issue of how to interpret and analyze constitutional law is a commonly and sometimes hotly debated topic in most constitutional systems.

It is not so in the European Union, though. Here, such questions have seldom been raised. Although discussion of the European Court of Justice and its general methods of interpretation is intensive and critical, little thought is given to the specific question of interpreting the Union's constitutional law and even less to methods and approaches of European constitutional scholarship. Considering the emergence of European constitutional law in past years and the breadth and scope of constitutional debate in the EU today, this state of discussion seems hardly appropriate. 

On the contrary, it is the calling of European constitutional scholarship to reflect on its methodological arsenal. It should inquire into its set of interpretative rules and analytical approaches, it should discuss, whether its object justifies a special set of methodological tools—and what such tools should be.

The following paper considers these questions in three steps. The first part will ask why the topic of European constitutional law should actually justify a specialized methodology – and how such a methodology can be developed (A.). Considering the specific nature of this body of law, the role and cognitive interests of legal academia and the virtues of a debate as such, it will argue for the distinct value of such a methodology.  

The second part will then attempt to sketch contours of a methodology of European ...