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May 20, 2005
Big talk, foregone conclusion
So this is interesting:
European leaders raised the stakes in the battle for the new constitution on Friday when Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg and the current European Union president, said the EU would not proceed with the new treaty if French voters rejected it in the referendum on May 29.
Officials in Brussels have suggested that if France were to reject the treaty, as opinion polls suggest, it could be renegotiated and put to a second referendum, but Juncker appears to have ruled this out.
Separately, EU foreign ministers are due to meet in Brussels on Sunday as the nations that pay most into the EU's coffers are seeking to scale back future contributions.
"If France votes no in a referendum on the European constitutional treaty, the European Union will lose 20 years. Treaties have never been renegotiated," Juncker said in an interview published Friday in the Belgian newspaper De Standaard. [emphasis mine]
Big talk from Juncker, but my guess is that it's just that: talk. The EU intelligentsia are rightfully scared by the prospects of a French rejection, and they're racking their brains about what would come from such a once-unthinkable scenario. But such speculation derives from a shortsighted conception of the French referendum and misses its wider significance. That France has even put the constitution to a vote -- a core EU country allowing its citizens to pass judgment on the most important EU document in 50 years -- already represents a victory for the EU. This is true regardless of the poll’s eventual outcome.
The EU has long been plagued by a “democratic deficit.” It has often seemed more relevant to bureaucrats in Brussels than to the average Europeans it is supposed to benefit. Over 20 years ago, the EU created a parliament to address, in part, this very same deficit. But despite its growth in authority over the years, the parliament’s power is limited, and the deficit remains. Its cause and effect are one and the same: the EU remains an abstract theory to many because its recent growth has not been matched by effective popular engagement. The French referendum is a big step toward fixing that dangerous shortfall.
Moreover, while acceptance of the constitution would presuppose support for the EU as a theory, rejection would by no means imply the opposite. Whereas many French view the constitution as too economically liberal, many Britons view it as not nearly liberal enough. While the constitution would give the EU a president and a foreign minister, it also reaffirms that the institution is subsidiary to member states. A French acceptance would not necessarily be good for the EU, and a rejection would not necessarily be bad. The two possible outcomes merely represent different realities deriving from the same theory.
The French referendum, then, has already proven to be a victory for the EU. It was a victory from the day France selected the referendum model of ratification, it is today as the constitutional debate rages in France and across Europe, and it will be on May 29, when the EU will face a genuine popular reckoning. The reality resulting from the poll’s fallout -- from either an acceptance or a rejection -- is entirely unpredictable, and that makes it scary.
But democracy, after all, is a little scary. Winston Churchill (no slouch of a European himself) called it the worst form of government except for all others. Europeans, and the French in particular, know this. But if it is to thrive into the future, the imperfect reality of democracy must test the perfect theory of the EU. For all the good it has done and for all the bureaucrats it has employed, the EU remains just that: a theory. So far, it is a theory that has passed every test with reality it has faced, and it likely will pass its next one on May 29. If the French accept the constitution, the test will pass without much consternation. If they reject the constitution, however, the reality faced by the EU will be one more bracing and genuine than it has ever known.
Posted by Daniel Widome at 11:43 PM to Europe
