[EU] Trouw met je rendier en wat democratisch gebabbel

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A Victory in France
May 30, 2005

The European Union's constitutional treaty, which according to exit polls was voted down in France yesterday, 55%-45%, began life three-and-a-half years ago as an attempt to bring the EU "closer to its citizens." After yesterday's referendum in France – but more especially after the vigorous campaign leading up to that vote – it may be said that, in France at least, the constitution is finally a success.

The document itself, of course, is a monstrosity. It runs to hundreds of pages (how many hundreds depends both on the language it's in and which bits you count); reading it is alternately an exercise in hilarity and stupefaction -- did you know that one of its "annexes and protocols" contains an article concerning the right of the Sami people to husband reindeer? It may indeed simplify some things, at least for the eurocrats, but given its length, its convolutions and its alternations between the vague and the hyper-detailed (remember the reindeer), you'd be forgiven for not noticing.

But for all that, there was something about it that resembles the EU; it was inelegant, clumsy and bloated, a clear compromise between competing factions whose differences could not be resolved, so they were papered over instead. The treaty was drafted by a constitutional convention called into existence in December 2001 and chaired by former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing. The convention process was supposed to involve Europe's citizenry in its drafting, but in reality it droned on for two years in nigh-perfect anonymity.

The document it produced was met with broad public indifference, especially in countries like France. Spain held a referendum on ratification, but nobody noticed, and less than half the voters even bothered to cast a ballot.

All this was business as usual in Europe. But about six weeks ago, opinion polls in France suggested for the first time that a French referendum on ratifying the constitution might fail. And a remarkable thing happened -- a debate erupted. It was a messy, desultory, at times seemingly irrelevant argument. But at bottom, people had started to ask themselves, what sort of thing should the EU be? And, as a corollary, does this constitutional treaty move the EU toward or away from what I want it to be? These are two independent questions, of course, and technically French voters were only being asked the latter. The debate in France made it clear, furthermore, that the answer to the first question was far from obvious. The "non" camp in France derided the constitution as an ultra-liberal, Anglo-Saxon thing, destined to strip Europe of its social-welfare model, while the "ouis" asserted that the constitution was France's only bulwark against the encroachment of Anglo-Saxon-style capitalism.

At the same time, Nicholas Sarkozy, the leader of the ruling party, the UMP, argued for the constitution on the same grounds that the no camp argued against it -- that it would force France to reform its bloated welfare state, create more jobs and increase economic growth.

Clearly, the constitution was never going to be all these things to all these people. But whatever the truth about the document itself -- a hard thing to discern in a 485-page treaty, counting all annexes, protocols, and declarations of member states -- it kicked off a debate about the EU in France that was long overdue.

Other countries could probably benefit from a bit of the same. Indeed, a vigorous public debate about what the EU should be -- bigger or smaller; doing more than it does now or less; more "democratic" or more "efficient"; etc. is now unavoidable. These questions have become all the more pressing as the EU has expanded into ever more areas of citizens' lives; the December 2001 declaration that started the ball rolling noted, "What they [citizens] expect is more results, better responses to practical issues and not a European super-state or European institutions inveigling their way into every nook and cranny of life" (our emphasis).

But pressing as they are, they are never really addressed to the people of Europe, or weren't until now. Nor did many in Brussels have much interest in the answers. One senior EU bureaucrat we spoke to last month had this to say about the French and the constitution: "They haven't read it. If they had read it, they wouldn't understand it. If they understood it, they wouldn't like it." Needless to say, he thought that the French should vote yes anyway.

So, despite enjoying support of every mainstream political party in France, the constitution was voted down yesterday after an overwhelming turnout at the polls. Is this the end of the road? Almost certainly not. The constitution got the rejection it deserved, but it did, at last, give life to a vigorous debate about what the EU should do and how it should do it -- this is the treaty's success. We say, let that debate continue, hopefully absent the hysterical rhetoric heard from the europhiles in the days leading up to yesterday's vote. After it's gone on long enough, the EU may be clear enough about what its citizens want to draft a constitution worthy of the name -- and worthy of ratification.