The purpose of this paper is to discern key democratic lessons from the EU''s constitutional experience. This requires paying explicit attention to the EU’s protracted process of constitutionalisation - both the character and dynamics of the process and how it might best be conceptualised. The paper takes as its point of departure that the theory of constitutional synthesis provides the best vantage-point for discerning more concrete democratic lessons from the EU’s constitutional experience. This theory comes with a specific conception of democracy. The paper spells this out and discusses what democratic quality that has and how much of it is retained post-Lisbon.
