The book traces the political struggles of politicians and ministry officials, judges and academics for a European Union from the Hague European Congress in 1948 to the Lisbon Treaty in 2007. Frank Schorkopf reconstructs the project of a European political order as a juxtaposition and coexistence of three currents of thought, the constitutionalists, governmentalists and pragmatists, in which constitutional authority is undecided. In the sixteen chapters it becomes clear that the people involved wanted to create something new, but could hardly break away from their constitutional-historical imprints and were always confronted with classic questions of a power architecture: about legitimacy and acceptance, about the protection of fundamental rights and identity.