May 30, 2005
France rejects the European Constitution.
France says “Non” to the 250-odd-page, intellectually bankrupt train wreck that is the EU Constitution (beta version). As France was one of the founding six members of the European Union (Britain wasn’t), it’s big news.
Hey Guys, next time you draft a proposed constitution, try to keep it under 1000 words. If you can’t, it probably means you haven’t really given it sufficient thought.
[UPDATE:] Jarvis pipes in:
It’s about trying to turn Europe in to a faux nation. It’s about protectionism. It’s about Europe thinking it is a world player when it is no longer. And it’s about a bad constitution that made up for in bureaucracy what it lacked in vision.
The Europe project has been around for over 40 years. Not once in the last 10 years have I heard any big-time Europhile ever try to answer the very simple question: “What problem is the current ‘Europe’ project actually trying to solve?”
Besides the problem of Eurocrats not having enough money, power or freebies, that is.
Exactly. I wish more people would think like that. In Germany they didn’t even bother to ask the people what we think about the constitution.
I would have said no.
What use are laws that nobody knows about or understands? Isn’t the very purpose of law that it is universally understood and accepted? Who needs legislation made by and for a few companies and politicians?
Baaad marketing
This was a vote of confidence against those currently in power. The vast majority of people couldn’t actually make up their own mind and would trust whichever digested version they prefered. Since people are usually quicker to dismiss change then embrace it we need to take a few steps back now.
“What use are laws that nobody knows about or understands?” — 99% of people are completely ignorant about current laws and regulations so I doubt this would have made a big difference.
It’s a bit like a soft drink, most people don’t really know or care about what’s in it so it needs to be sold on trust. The question is the same: do you trust the company/government that sells it and will you be swayed by the celebrity/politician pushing it? Bad marketing indeed. Bastards.
Oh, I’m a “yes” person myself for those who hadn’t noticed.
A Europe of the elites, for the elites, and who made the bloody stupid decision of asking the proles anyway?
An interesting challenge to the existing order I feel. Not that they will react in anything other than the most superficial of manners. The whole EU governing body is a self-sustaining entity that now has enough conflicting local governments within it, that there is little effective opposition to their whimsy.
Non a la Constitution!
First of all, I am French so I have a right to meddle. Secondly, merde, merde, merde.
Maybe I am completely misinformed about what the constitution actually contains, but my undertanding of it, is that it describes the way us citizens interact with the institutions of the EU, what our rights are etc. I thought that it was supposed to be a distillation of all of the various treaties we (in Ireland anyway) have voted on over the last 25 years into one document which is more understandable and consice.
On what the constitution is about: the most important thing, largely IMHO, is the rebalancing of qualified mavoting rules to work more effectively (read: with less vetos) with the 10 more states in the expanded union.
On Hugh’s question: “What problem is the current ‘Europe’ project actually trying to solve?”
The answer to that one is multiple:
* To prevent war through integration.
* A common market without double taxation (although many British firms don’t realise this, and often try to charge tax on sales to other member countries’ firms), but also with regulations to prevent unfair competition.
* A way for smaller countries to act and influence above their size; give up some local power to gain some global power.
* A way of unifying and projecting a “European” cultural, economic and military perspective on world affairs, to counterbalance dependence on the U.S.: witness the ineffectiveness of the EU on Yugoslavia, Srebenica.
Why not write a people’s constitution that embodies the ideals Europeans believe in? A sub-1000 word documment styled, like the US constitution, to represent a best possible effort?
Phrased in language people understand and concened with the big picture. Ideas like healthcare and human rights, free trade without protectionism, legal recourse etc.
We often rail at America as Europeans, but their constitution (which I’ve lived under for many years) offers me better protection than the laws of my own country (Patriot act notwithstanding).
It’s a certainty that a people’s constitution would be supported in the same way a manned trip to Mars would be if any American leader had the balls to make it a ten year priority.
People like vision and something to strive for. We all want a better, cleaner, safer world for our children.
The European constitution shouldn’t be about laws and objectives, it should be about ideals. A better way of living it’s enshrined to protect.
Am I the only dreamer who believes this is not only prefferable but possible? We can do it on the web — who cares whose ideas are included as long as they’re good?
Yes, Barry, I’m well aware of all those “problems”.
All, I believe, could be addressed with the usual things that work well– good laws, good treaties, good diplomacy, accountable govenments, healthy economies, and the political mettle to use violence when the times call for it.
As I write this, I am trying to do more business with “Europe”. For that, I need more customers from there, and the ability to interact with them economically.
So I’m thinking, “Cheap plane tickets, cheap hotels, mutual give and take, mutual respect.
Nowhere in my tiny little brain am I thinking, “Gosh, my Paris business is too slow. If only I had a fascistic Eurocrat Superstate to pave the way…”
Secondly, there is a great line written by a young 34-year-old Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independance, signed on July 4th, 1776:
“Goverments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
I defy you to find a line the Euro Constitution as lucid, succinct, memorable and powerful as that one.
Short and understandable paragraphes that contain some vision about an peaceful Europe is what I think belongs to an constitution. Not an bloated document only few will ever read.
Why not say things like “The preservation of our natural environment is top priority and at all times the technical possible is to try to fulfil this goal. Every member of the EU has the right to clean air, water, soil…” Think of it as kind of axioms similar to mathematics.
Everything else should be left to the process of creating actual laws based on those principles and of course this needs to be an adaptive process.
Just my idea of what this constitution should contain? AFAIK not!
Maybe Europe should just adopt the Cluetrain Manifesto as their constitution.
The “Constitution” is a treaty which replaces all existing ones, and introduces some new stuff which I think is pretty important. Thus, it’s sad that it got discarded because people simply have no idea what it’s all about (which is a long term effect of how the goverments have treated the people).
As a citizen of one of the smaller European countries, I would have probably voted yes if I was given the chance to vote.
The situation as it stands is a mess of treaties, local laws, institutions and bureaucrats. The point was to do away with a lot of this shit, and get everyone pulling in the same direction — a proper cleanup.
What I don’t get is how the no-voters think that by voting no they somehow will do away with the brussels bureaucracy — the effect will be the opposite, things will stay the way they are, with the council, commision, and parliament locked in a stalemate and the citizen having very little say in european affairs.
As for “fascist superstate” in france — there’s nothing in there stating that everyone should adopt France’s social model. On the contrary, the european project always went more in the direction of free trade and free market implications (to the annoyance of the ordinary citizen, who feels underrepresented and unprotected wrt larger companies)
Anything that’ll bring us more representation, and more simplification can only be a good thing. The no-voters were mostly voting against their own governements, and I believe very few got accurate information or bothered to read the document. A shame.
Had the question on the referendum in France or the Netherlands been: do you want to leave Europe, and just use good diplomacy, good treaties, etc etc, I think the result would have been an overwhelming refusal.