Euro skeptics vote: 'Nein, Non and Nee'
UNITED NATIONS — With a resounding "Nein," "Non" and "Nee", Europeans boldly voted No to the status quo. In just over a week, Europe’s political Richter scale was jolted three times.
With stunning electoral setbacks to Germany’s ruling Socialists, a cataclysm for France’s haughty political class, and a jarring Dutch rejection of the new European constitution, the European Union has been thrown into crisis.
The electoral jolt first came in Germany, where an crucial state election shattered Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s political bailiwick and sent his already crippled Socialist government into shock. Following the setback in populous and powerful North Rhine Westphalia, Schroeder then surprised observers calling for early national elections. Given high unemployment rates (12%) and national angst, the ruling Social Democrats (SPD) are expected to lose, and not soon enough!
Schroeder’s setback sets the stage for a likely new Christian Democratic (CDU/CSU) government in the EU’s largest country — a party which has historically been closer to Washington’s views.
The French constitutional referendum provided a continental-wide shock. Curious political bedfellows from left to right opposed the Euro constitution for a plethora of different concerns; some sought more economic protectionism, others feared the further erosion of national sovereignty, while many just wanted to teach President Jacques Chirac’s government a political lesson.
A vote of 55 percent against and 45 for prompted the leading newspaper Le Figaro to headline — “NON — Jacques Chirac’s Shattered Dream” But democracy nonetheless!
French voters fear the future and favor the cocoon of government protectionism, “the social state.” Others believe that the European Union is too big, too remote, and too centralized. Many are uncomfortable with a socio/political homogeneity in which unelected bureaucrats in Brussels rule and impose cookie cutter solutions on twenty-five profoundly different nation-states.
Chirac has championed the new European constitution — a weighty 300+ page document which deals more in minutia than political and economic structures. But France already has a constitution!
Philippe de Villiers, leader of a pro-sovereignty movement said sagely; “The French people have given a huge slap in the face to an entire system that has the nerve to tell them what to think!”
Polish politician Bronislaw Geremek once opined, “We have created Europe, now we must create Europeans.”
The Economist of London which surprisingly called for a No vote opined editorially “What is needed instead is a treaty that acknowledges the central political concern; that an EU that is increasingly remote, is also a threat to the diversity of Europe’s nations and thus to national identity.”
Euro skeptics cite a host of concerns; the remoteness of EU institutions, a dislike for the common Euro currency, and loss of national sovereignty to a centralized Euro super-state, too rapid expansion of new members including possible membership for Turkey. Especially in France there’s an unreasonable but very French fear of opening markets through “Anglo-Saxon policies” (code for U.S.-British free markets) which would theoretically threaten the economic security of French workers. Alas, those workers are already threatened by their own government’s rigid policies which has entrenched unemployment (10%), stultified labor markets and caused companies to move to China.
Ground rules — all of the EU’s 25 members must ratify the constitution either through a parliamentary vote or a referendum — otherwise the document is presumably a dead duck.
While many parliaments most recently Austria, Italy, Germany and Latvia approved the draft document, two core EU members France and the Netherlands rejected it in popular referendums. When Dutch votes resoundingly voted 63 percent against the constitution, the smug political elites knew the game could be up.
Despite this popular rejection of these wider powers, the European Union nonetheless has proven a positive force for economic and commercial progress as much as NATO equally provided the cornerstone of military security.
But as French discovered the day after, the sky had not fallen, the sun still rose, and there are new polemical windmills to tilt at. Ministers are reshuffling the political deck and aftershocks and damage control will dominate the Summer. Former French President Charles de Gaulle envisioned one Europe too — but a Europe of the Nations, not the contemporary dream of a United States of Europe.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense
issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.  |
