What is the constitutional order of the European Union now?

It is a commonly asked question – what is the legal basis (the constitutional framework) under which the European Union is operating now? This is debated by academics and legal practitioners. But most of the European officials and politicians seem to have closed their eyes – they act as if there was no problem and the EU constitutional order is developing in a way it was developing for the last couple of decades. The current structure of the constitutional framework for the EU is clear – the basis is all the treaties, the last one being the Treaty of Nice. From this perspective, the treaties are as valid as they were a two or five years ago. However, there is one problem with this analysis. And this problem is the negative referenda in the Netherlands and France concerning the adoption of the Constitution of Europe. The analysis should start by looking at what exactly the Constitution of Europe was trying to do. The Constitution contained very few reforms and areas which were new to the European constitutional order. The main aim was to codify the previous treaties and to simplify the whole system. Using this analysis things start to look rather different. If the Constitution of Europe was codification of the previous treaties, is it not true to say that a ‘no’ vote in the two referenda was an implied ‘no’ to the treaties themselves? Obviously it is much easier for the EU officials to just use the current framework as if the referenda on the Constitution were a completely separated issue which had nothing to do with the treaties themselves. But is it really so? Does not the legal analysis of the situation lead to a conclusion that the people of Europe have rejected the treaties as well? Or should we also take into consideration the non-legal argument that the European Union has no real alternative as going back to the original treaties?