本文所要探討的是一個尚未回答的問題，也就是歐盟的法律地位問題，換句話說，歐盟在法律上屬於哪一類型的政治組織?

很顯然的，以傳統法律術語裡面所定義的聯邦去定位歐盟並不合適。目前的歐盟，既不是聯邦，也不應視為聯邦。當然，她也不能被稱為一個國家，因為她並沒有也不願爭取做為一個國家所必須具備的最高決策權力。根據歐盟憲法條約草案第一條第十一項第二款的規定，歐盟任何一種權力的取得以歐盟成員國的個別授權為限。因此，如何定義歐盟，至今還沒有人給過一個大家都能接受的答案。

筆者認為，給予歐盟一個法律地位，仍然是必要的。因此，我們有必要尋找一個新的術語來界定歐盟，這一個迄今尚未出現過的政治體。

The article deals with an unanswered question of how the legal status of the European Union may be characterized. In other words: What kind of political community the EU belongs to?

It is rather easy to demonstrate that the juridical terms, which were used traditionally to define federally organized political units, are not appropriate to characterize the European Union. It may not be treated as a confederation of soveregin states nor as a federal state, and the EU itself resists being called a state at all. It is because that the EU does not possess and is not willing to compete for the monopoly of power. According to Article I-11(2) of the Brussells Constitutional Treaty, the power of the EU is limited to “individual authorizations”, by which is was conferred on by the EU member states.

However, so far nobody has succeeded in defining the special status of the EU, let alone reaching for universal approval by doing so. The constitutional quality of the EU, as it is understood by the author, has yet to be clasified. We are still in search of an adequate new term for a new, hitherto unknown political creature- which, for the time being, remains the cause of all kinds of fears as well as great hopes.