Abstract

In view of the positive experiences with the EU Convention, the political parties in Austria agreed in 2003 to install a similar body for drafting a new Constitution. In contrast to its European predecessor, the Austrian Convention could not present one single document in its final report of February 2005. Besides that, the two reform processes differed in several other respects. Although Austrian newspapers reported more extensively on the EU’s “Constitutiongiving” than on the national Convention’s proceedings, the domestic reform debate has still been characterised by an “illusion of nation-state autonomy”. Regarding the main tasks of constitutional reform – clarification, adaptation and innovation –, the Austrian Convention has met with only modest results. It seems more than uncertain that the Parliament will decide upon a new Constitution on that basis.