Interview with Philippe de Schoutheete, Belgian Permanent Representative to the European Union from 1987 to 1997, carried out by the Centre Virtuel de la Connaissance sur l’Europe (CVCE) on 9 April 2010 in the studios of the Council of the European Union in Brussels. The interview, conducted by Hervé Bribosia, Research Coordinator at the CVCE, particularly focuses on the following subjects: enlargement to 15 Member States and the Ioannina Compromise, the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Treaty of Nice, the beginnings of the European constitutional process, the role of the European Commission in the work of the European Convention, the institutional reforms introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon and the origins of these reforms, the failure of the European Constitution and its consequences, and ‘the end and the means’.