Non and Nee! What now?

The EU constitution is in trouble. In order for it to come to life it has to be ratified by all of the 25 member states, which is now unlikely after the French and the Dutch referendums. The initial reactions from Brussels were ‘business as usual’ and ‘the process of ratification should go on’. Why? Did Brussels think the referendums in France and Netherlands could be ignored and the whole thing kept alive?

To understand the mindset of Brussels' bureaucrats one must consider the doctrine concieved by one of the EU founding fathers, Jean Monnet. A couple of decades ago Monet was aware that it would be very difficult to integrate European countries burdened with decades of conflicts, by means of political democracy. So he argued that the critical momentum for full-blown political unification should be achieved by pushing through with integration on less controversial levels – agriculture, common market and currency. Apparently, his guidelines have been carefully implemented.

Let us consider the latter, the crown of European integration (at least so far), the almighty Euro for a moment. As a currency the Euro doesn’t really work for anyone. For the sclerotic continent the interest rates are too high and do not foster growth. For thriving economies (not that there are many of those in Europe) like the Irish they are too low, what fuels inflation and may cause the economy to overheat. The economies of European countries are rather diverse and if there was to be a single currency there should’ve been mechanisms in place to manage those diversities as there are in the States (federal tax-based redistribution system). These were not put in place and could not have been put in place because political consensus is required first.

But in this case the house was being built from the roof down along the lines of Monnet’s doctrine. The Euro was put in place in hope some sort of political consensus will follow. But it seems feeding the unity down our throats didn’t quite work for the French and for the Dutch. And if the Eurocrats get it their way and the British get to vote too (this seems unlikely now) we will probably find it didn’t quite work for them either.

To come back to the original question: what is the point of continuing with ratification? It’s because Non and Nee don’t really matter. Voters are seen as just a nuisance. A bit of arm-twisting and a bit of spin and we could still have our EU super state whether the punters like it or not. In theory the Dutch parliament could ratify the Constitution because the referendum was consultative. This seems unlikely but weirder things have happened. The French may get to vote again under a different government because they ‘didn’t quite understand the whole thing’ or because they ‘really voted against Chirac’ and not against the Constitution.

The Brussels officials wouldn’t mind making a complete mock out of democracy as long as the ‘higher cause’ – the sacred EU cow is saved. That explains their initial reaction – denial and defiance. Except for the idea that they can still see the Constitution through; can you think of any other reason why Brussels would want the ratification to go ahead? And that is why Chirac was on a mission convincing others to give it a lash anyway. Even our Taoiseach bought into it. He seems to have recently changed his mind and now wants to postpone the Irish referendum but for the wrong reason - not to reconsider the entire thing but to prevent the Irish and subsequently the others from saying ‘no’ to the Constitution in some sort of a ‘domino effect’.

So what now? Instead of wondering about how to save the Constitution, the EU bureaucrats and the leaders of EU states should carefully reflect upon two crucial issues. Do European countries really want a strong political union beyond the common market and the common currency? If so, how to reconcile the obvious ideological and economic differences? I’m afraid they would find that the common market was ‘as good as it gets’, the Euro was a step too far and the latter is a mission impossible. It is time for the Eurocrats to abandon Mr Monnet's doctrine.