RITTBERGER, Berthould <br/><br/>
'No integration without representation 

 - Oxfordshire :  Routledge,  December 2006 
<br/><br/> This article demonstrates that constitutionalization has been high on the agenda of political lites since the early days of European integration in the 1950s. The inclusion of representative institutions - parliaments with budgetary, legislative and control powers - was central in the negotiations of the two 'forgotten' Communities: the European Defence Community (EDC) and the European Political Community (EPC). It is argued that it was not federalist ideology which prompted policy-makers at the time to allot a prominent place to a European Parliament in the institutional structures of those Communities; it was the intended transfer of sovereignty to the supranational level which prompted a 'democratic spillover' process whereby political lites came to reflect on the direct repercussion of supranational integration for domestic parliamentary competences. Overlooked by federalists, neofunctionalists and intergovernmentalists alike, this democratic 'self-healing' mechanism of European integration is one of the most remarkable features of the European integration enterprise.