public feeling

These are the subjects that exercise real power, and that are thus in a position to transfer real power to another entity, even though it must be granted that such an initiative could come about only in exceptional circumstances, with the backing of a strong wave of public feeling since constituent power rests ultimately with the people and in a climate of openness and political debate involving the entire political class. A quite different matter will be the drawing up of its constitution, in other words the formulation of the rules that will govern the life of this new entity, once it has been created: the pactum unionis is not the same as the pactum constitutionis.

Etwas anderes ist die Ausarbeitung seiner Verfassung, d. h. die Formulierung der Vorschriften, welche die Ordnung dieses neuen Gebildes, wenn es denn einmal entstanden ist, regeln werden: in jedem Fall deckt sich der pactum unionis nicht mit dem pactum constitutionis.