Weeks before the French rejected a new constitution for the European Union, politicians warned that a non vote would be a death knell for the emerging unified continent.
Voters didn’t agree or didn’t care, with a comfortable majority defying President Jacques Chirac’s wishes and defeating the referendum. Those preaching dire consequences have proved to be awfully nimble, downplaying the vote and vowing to move forward with their plan to unify the continent under one economic and political banner.
But a “no” vote today in the Netherlands most certainly will kill this version of the constitution.
The constitution requires ratification from all 25 member nations. (If voters in the Netherlands approve, France could take another run at it.)
“This is a critical moment in Europe’s history,” Jean-Luc Dehaene, former Belgian prime minister and one of the architects of the constitution, told The New York Times. “It is clear that the French ‘no’ brings Europe to a kind of standstill.”
The French, he said, “are completely without orientation and in a period of complete uncertainty.” Well, that’s the French for you, but maybe the voters had it right. This constitution could tie Europe in knots for decades.
Many of France’s working class voted against the referendum, worried that skilled workers from other countries would move into France and work for less pay – not only taking jobs but driving down wages. France is struggling with high unemployment and EU strictures preordain efforts to reduce the nation’s deficit. Such economic fears don’t stop at France’s borders.
The constitution is designed to give authority to the European central government on issues of foreign and domestic concern, but the people had little say in its development. If it’s abandoned, the EU will remain but must continue to operate under a patchwork of existing laws.
“Will future historians record May 29, 2005, as the beginning of the end of the EU?” asked historian Timothy Garton Ash in Britain’s The Guardian. “It would be foolish to reject out of hand that possibility. All earlier attempts to unite Europe, starting with the Roman empire, have failed. Why should this one be the exception?”
The EU can and will survive for the next few years without a constitution, giving nations an opportunity to devise a new document that’s palatable to the people, not just their leaders. It has no other choice.
