IMAGINE Panel brought together the team of people working on the ERC-funded project IMAGINE – European Constitutional Imaginaries: Utopias, Ideologies and the Other. We discussed the key assumptions of the project and specific case studies focused on how the constitutional imaginaries of Europe have been construed in four countries of Central and Eastern Europe – the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Poland. By European Constitutional Imaginaries (ECIs) we mean sets of ideas and beliefs that help to motivate and justify the European integration, providing it with an overarching sense and purpose recognized as legitimate. The case studies focus on countries that for most of the post-war history were the “other“ to the West, seen as liberal, democratic and based on free market and competition, as later represented by the EU. We welcome all scholars with interest in critical approaches to European constitutionalism, from all parts of Europe and having different imaginaries in mind.

In the related working group, scholars from various countries contributed to the development of the concept of "constitutional imaginary".