“Constructing Europe” Network was a network of excellence for joined research and teaching will look at the construction of a new Europe especially from 2005-2008. It addressed questions of the mutual reinforcing effects of deepening and widening by developing and working with three sets of expectations for analysing the past and developing an innovative framework for the future integration beyond Western Europe. Within such a conceptual framework 25 teams tested lessons from the past in view of their academic and political validity for discussing visions and scenarios for the future. The major leitmotiv is that the Union is in the full process of reinventing itself – a development which is however difficult to grasp and explain.