Academic scholar and advocate Vigjilenca Abazi wears many hats. Going beyond law in books, she aptly operates at the intersection of academia, civic action, and institutional reform. Such versatility is reflected in this conversation, as Vigjilenca untangles the many layers of dissensus in the EU in a critical yet self-reflective manner. She takes the reader by hand, from her personal experience growing up at a time when democracy and the rule of law were aspirations in a society shaped by war, to her career path devoted to strengthening legal protections for whistleblowers and, more recently, to fostering a European legal culture that takes seriously both individual agency and collective responsibility. This chapter unpacks the paradoxical nature of the EU, illustrated by the opacity of EU official secrets; the allure of legal language as a tool to ‘justify the ends we want to see in society’; the structural imbalances between public and private power, and the role of whistleblowers in bridging this divide; and, finally, a deep disorientation amongst citizens—a disconnect, as Vigjilenca puts it, ‘between the ideals of constitutionalism, of democracy, and the lived experience of individuals’. For Vigjilenca Abazi, democracy is fragile and unfinished. Its future rests on our willingness to inhabit democratic space and reshape law as a living, participatory practice.