The project is part of the program WIN-Kolleg carried out by the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. The objective is an interdisciplinary investigation of how a European constitution can be developed and legitimized when in conflict with national constitutions. The starting point is the realization that the discussion about a European constitution is not finished in spite of trying to reach a consensus. On the one hand, the prolonged dissension is due to the influence of national constitutions and national ideas of legitimacy (the discussion is characterized by different national constitutional traditions). On the other hand, there is no innovative approach to integrate the European nation states with their individual demand for sovereignty. Due to this development, there is no consensus regarding legitimacy and, therefore, all revisions of the Treaties do not answer the question of legitimacy. With the enlargement of the EU to 25 plus member states, the question concerning the legitimacy of the EU has to be solved. This includes the change of the European Union itself as well as its decision processes. The European Convention has developed a draft Treaty establishing a constitution for Europe which will be debated at the Intergovernmental Conference. The discussions reveal that there is no consensus in regard to important questions even after the work done by the Convention. This concerns especially the legislative process and the fiscal and monetary system, both of which are closely connected to the legitimacy of the EU as a whole. Therefore, it seems reasonable to investigate the legitimacy of the EU on the basis of two areas and develop proposals for the organisation of the legislative process and the financial system of the European Union. The approach will be interdisciplinary from the start; so that there are no specialist subprojects. All questions will be analysed by each participating discipline. At the same time, we will try to develop practical proposals for the discussion about a European constitution. The specific economic contribution to the project is the analysis of the monetary and fiscal institutions created by the actual financial system of the EU. First, we will analyse the actual financial constition, e.g. the democratic deficit of the European System of Central Banks, then we will develop different options for the financial system of the enlarged EU.