It seems like the re­sult of writ­ing up some sort of Euro­pean con­sti­tu­tion is a text that func­tions as a Rorschach inkblot. Lib­er­als can see some­thing lib­er­al in it, so­cial­ist can see some­thing so­cial in it, etc. Which is what you can get if you start writ­ing some­thing that has to be ac­cept­ed by lots of dif­fer­ent peo­ple with very dif­fer­ent views, and not much care is tak­en to have it make sense. Add some blind­ing en­t­hou­si­asm by the par­ties who re­al­ly like what they see in the blot, and all ef­forts to take a few steps back to see what re­al­ly is go­ing on are use­les. Maybe you liked what you saw in the blot and vot­ed for it, but not un­til some judge takes a look at that same blot and tells you what the blot looks like ac­cord­ing to him, you won't know whether it was a good idea...

And if that isn't enough, the blot is trans­lat­ed to sev­er­al dif­fer­ent lan­guages, so not all blots are ex­act­ly the same. YMMV.

(btw: now run­ning Lin­ux ker­nel 2.6.11.11)