The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, liberty, democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights, values which are common to the Member States. Its aim is a society at peace, through the practice of tolerance, justice and solidarity.

This Article concentrates on the essentials - a short list of fundamental European values. Further justification for this is that a manifest risk of serious breach of one of those values by a Member State would be sufficient to initiate the procedure for alerting and sanctioning the Member State (see Article 45 of the preliminary draft Treaty which would incorporate the mechanism set out in Article 7 TEU), even if the breach took place in the field of the Member State's autonomous action (not affected by Union law). This Article can thus only contain a hard core of values meeting two criteria at once: on the one hand, they must be so fundamental that they lie at the very heart of a peaceful society practising tolerance, justice and solidarity; on the other hand, they must have a clear non- controversial legal basis so that the Member States can discern the obligations resulting therefrom which are subject to sanction.

That does not, of course, prevent the Constitution from mentioning additional, more detailed elements which are part of the Union's "ethic" in other places, such as, for instance, in the Preamble, in Article 3 on the general objectives of the Union, in the Charter of Fundamental Rights (which, unlike this Article, does not, however, apply to autonomous action by the Member States), in Title VI on "The democratic life of the Union" and in the provisions enshrining the specific objectives of the various policies.