European Union from European Constitution to the Lisbon Treaty within the framework of public interaction

Increased number of members to EU has also brought together the problems related to bureaucracy. In order to regulate the complicated setting, a requirement to identify authorization characteristics of member countries has been put forward. The first draft of constitution for this purpose constituted the legal roof of the EU by uniting the scattered legal texts. Execution and legal validity of the mentioned draft was left to the approval of member countries. Process of approval was conducted either by parliements as in some countries or referandum in others. However, the draft received objections from member countries from several points such as including elements of a federal country and threating the national sovereignities. Therefore, following the refusal of France and Holland after country wide referendums, the draft was shelved as this was the case for other countries as well.Summits that were held during the sagnation period of European Constitution were aimed finding ways to revive the process and Lisbon Treaty was concluded. The treaty which aims more democratic, participant and transperant Europe, left essential parts of the constitituon draft untouched yet it amended its parts which received objections in the past. Only the parliaments were considered in approval process but Ireland had to conduct referendum because of the country?s constitution. As a result of referandum in Ireland, the country rejected the Treaty and demanded some guarantees from European Union. The Union accepted to make some sacrifices for Ireland following the announcement of Poland and Czech Republic that they would not approve the Treaty unless a positive result obtained in Ireland. Second referendum ended in a ?Yes? after these incidents. By the approval of Poland and Czech Republic, Lisbon Treaty came into force on December 1st, 2009. This study aims to analyze scopes of EU Constitution and Lisbon Treaty as well as their approval processes. Moreover a comparison has been made while the effect of public opinion which played the main role in these processes has also been investigated.Key Words: European Union, European Constitution, Lisbon Treaty, Public Opinion, Referendum