Following the dramatic No votes in the French and Dutch referendums on 29 May and 1 June 2005, a need was felt in the European constitutional law profession to react to the shock.

EuConst invited members of its Board and members of the European Constitutional Law Network to write a short comment about possible and possibly salutary effects of the events on the ways of European scholarship and teaching. Below are the reactions received. Authors are all members of ECLN and/or the Board of EuConst.

The contributions to this issue of EuConst by Jacques Ziller, Sacha Prechal and Herman van Gunsteren carry their comments on the events incorporated.

While the Union's powers and responsibilities are ever on the increase and co-operation deepens as the Union begins to take positions more easily in the areas of freedom, security, justice and defense, it is seeking to keep the Member States and the Union together via the duties of loyalty. These are spelled out in general terms in Article I-5, and in more specific terms in specific contexts, such as those of the Common Foreign and Security Policy [Article I-15(2)]. Article I-5 is entitled ‘Relations between the Union and the Member States’, but it is also central to the relations between the Member States themselves in terms, for example, of the exercise of their voting rights in the Council of Ministers. The Article consolidates provisions that are currently scattered over various Treaties but not without adding some novelties.