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Jewish World Review June 2, 2005 / 24 Iyar, 5765 The EU meets democracy By Rich Lowry
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
French President Jacques Chirac forgot the first rule of European Union
politics: "Don't consult the voters (it will only encourage them)." For that, he
suffered a crushing defeat on Sunday, when 55 percent of French voters delivered
a stirring "non" to the proposed new EU constitution, potentially ending the EU
project as we have known it. See what mischief comes from allowing pesky public
opinion to have too large a say in EU affairs?
To this point, the EU has become steadily more powerful on the basis of
bureaucratic aggrandizement and elite bullying. After the French vote, EU
worthies lined up to dismiss it. Josep Borrell, president of the EU parliament,
said, "France decides only for France." But the constitution is supposed to be
approved by all 25 EU member nations. Martin Schulz, a member of the parliament,
agreed: "We respect the result of this democratic vote. But [there's always a
'but'] French voters voted against the opportunity to create a better Europe."
And so the implication hangs in the air that the vote is illegitimate and cannot
stand.
This is the EU way. It was practically built on reversing inconvenient
popular votes. In 1992, Denmark rejected the Maastricht Treaty, the agreement to
change the European Community — a common market — into the more ambitious
European Union. Since this result was considered unacceptable, a revote was held
shortly afterward, and the treaty passed. Ireland rejected the Nice Treaty,
which would have expanded the EU from 15 to 25 nations in 2001, and then
accepted it in a revote in October 2002. Revotes are never deemed necessary when
a pro-EU measure passes.
Such a "do over" is already being discussed in France, the heart of the EU.
Sunday's vote was a little like Texas voting against President George W. Bush.
French attitudes have been implanted into the very DNA of the EU, including the
bureaucratic centralization and anti-Americanism. Chirac could plausibly argue
that France would fulfill its national destiny by ratifying the constitution,
the drafting of which was led by — of course — a former French president.
The voters had different ideas. They rejected the ungainly document, which
is as thick as a trashy summer novel, for a dog's breakfast of right-wing and
left-wing reasons. Many "non" voters opposed the "Anglo-Saxon" free-market
economic policies that would accompany further EU integration. But even an
Anglo-Saxon can find the French public's verdict exhilarating, a
thumb-in-the-eye revolt against their betters, who didn't realize the mistake in
allowing them to vote until it was too late.
The crisis brought on by the French vote represents an opportunity. The EU
vision has always been to unify the 25 members into one European super-state
with common foreign and defense policies and to make it a geopolitical rival to
America. Now, U.S. policymakers should encourage a two-tiered EU. The center —
France, Germany and Belgium — should be tightly united in a federation. The
rest should be loosely affiliated in a glorified free-trade area, thus
preserving the ability of Britain and countries in Eastern Europe to maintain
their distinct (and markedly more sympathetic to the U.S.) foreign policies.
The German playwright Bertolt Brecht once wrote a poem mocking the Soviets
for complaining about the skepticism with which East Germans regarded them:
"Would it not be easier for the government to dissolve the people and elect
another?" Surely that is the option that the EU masters would prefer in the wake
of the French vote. Democracy will take some getting used to.
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© 2005 King Features Syndicate |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
