Too long?

I know, the text of the Constitution is way too long (more than 300 pages). True, the US Constitution is shorter - actually, only if you forget about the amendments and the 200 years of jurisprudence and of interpretation of the text.
The EU text is actually both a constitution per se and an international treaty: the EU is inventing something new, never done before. It is the result of the peaceful cooperation of a continent, something that the world has never seen before.
The national states will not disappear, hence the need of an international treaty. At the same time, an entity above these very nations is created and needs to be defined: this is where we need a constitution.
Update: Publius, a French blog about the EU, published a few days ago a post on the exact same topic. You know what they about great minds meeting ;-)

Comments

[Sandy P]

Not according to a post on EU referendum. Someone slipped in an interview.

Unless I read it wrong.

[Robin]

Does the constitution guarantee the nation states wont disapear?

[peter]

Robin,

Actually, this was already in the ECT:
article 5: The Community shall act within the limits of the powers conferred upon it by this Treaty and of the objectives assigned to it therein.
In areas which do not fall within its exclusive competence (this is almost all areas of competence) , the Community shall take action, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, only if and in so far as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can therefore, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achieved by the Community.
Any action by the Community shall not go beyond what is necessary to achieve the objectives of this Treaty.

The constitution improves the subsidiarity test and added an article explicitly stating that EU should respect the nation states:

Article I-5
Relations between the Union and the Member States
1. The union shall respect the equality of Member States before the constitution as well as their national identities, inherent in their fundamental structures, political and constitutional, inclusive of regional and local self-government. it shall respect their essential State functions, including ensuring the territorial integrity of the State, maintaining law and order and safeguarding national security.
2. Pursuant to the principle of sincere cooperation, the Union and the Member States shall, in full mutual respect, assist each other in carrying out tasks which flow from the Constitution

in fact, the EC treaty already mentioned the duty of sincere cooperation in the 2nd part of this article, but is used to a one-way duty, only for the member states, now it's been made reciprocal.

On the length of the constitution;
If you compare it to the US constitution, only the first part (30 pages) is relevant. The second part (article II-61 onwards) is a bill of rights and the third part (articles III-151 onwards) is a technical part limiting EU action in the areas where it is competent, so i.m.o. it's a good thing to have these detailed texts, otherwise the court of justice would have a very easy job widening the scope of EU competences, as the Supreme court did for the US-govt. But, unless you're a law student, you don't have to read the third part, there's an outline of the EU competences in the first part, articles I-11 to I-18.