A. FISCHER-LESCANO/ F. ROEDL/ C. U. SCHMID(eds.): Europäische Gesellschaftsverfassung. Zur Konstitutionalisierung sozialer Demokratie in Europa Baden-Baden 2009 Nomos, 408 p. F or years Europe’s»social imbalance« has been subject to criticism, which the current Constitutional process has done nothing to rectify. European social democracy has developed an ambivalent attitude to this reproach: on the one hand, it calls for the creation of a»Social Europe«; on the other hand, it frankly presents the existing order of the eu as, in principle, open to social composition and locates the»social imbalance« rather in the dominance of neoliberal parties and in the neoliberal orientation of the European Court of Justice. Against this background, the book produced by the Zentrum für Europäi­sche Rechtspolitik( zerp ) in Bremen,»Europäische Gesellschaftsverfassung«(A European Societal Constitution), could represent an important contribution to further analysis and theoretical discussion. The guiding theme of the 20 contri­butions collected in the book is clearly discernible from the subtitle: no less than the possibility of a»constitutionalization of social democracy in Europe« is to be examined. In the foreword the editors refer to another important point: modern constitutions tend to be»societal constitutions,« their inherent goal being to per­meate the entire social sphere. Around half of the contributions collected in the book are devoted to the areas of private, labor, and economic law. In this connection, the editors expressly invoke the social democratic debate on constitutional theory during the Weimar Republic and the early Federal Republic, a theoretical line to which several of the authors refer in another section under the heading»Prospects of a Social De­mocratization of Europe.« A concluding section is dedicated – setting out from the thesis that a»return to the nation-state« is impossible – to the possibilities of a»conceptualization of a transnational societal constitution.« The eu ’s imbalance with regard to a labor and social constitution has often been discussed. The contributions brought together in this volume attempt to understand this in individual thematic areas, but above all seek the reasons for this development. As far as general private law is concerned, it is a body of law which hitherto has rarely been the focus of critical consideration. The authors consciously distance themselves from»jurisprudence’s illusion of neutrality,« as Brigitta Lurger writes in her contribution. Considerable space is also given over to discussion of the European welfare state and the labor constitution. For example, Florian Rödl, in a very readable contribution, comes to the sobering conclusion that the discussion of a»Social Europe« has finally proved to be an»interminable blind-alley,« while the model of a European Social Union has been talked into being in defiance of the facts. ipg 4/2010 Rezensionen/Book Reviews 249