[mgj-discuss] nyt on European Constitution crisis

[Todd Eaton]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/31/international/europe/31france.html

[] []

May 31, 2005

French No Vote on European Constitution Rattles Continent

By ELAINE SCIOLINO

PARIS, May 30 - The shock waves of France's rejection of a constitution for 
Europe reverberated throughout the Continent on Monday, with Britain 
suggesting that it might cancel its own popular vote on the document and 
the naysayers in the Netherlands gaining even more confidence that a no 
vote will prevail in a referendum there on Wednesday.

In France, the vote plunged the center-right government into crisis. 
President Jacques Chirac will announce "decisions concerning the 
government" and make a declaration on French television on Tuesday.

The statement was interpreted to mean that he would dismiss Prime Minister 
Jean-Pierre Raffarin and reshuffle his cabinet as a direct result of the 
repudiation of Mr. Chirac's leadership in a referendum on the European 
Union constitution on Sunday.

There has been open speculation for months that Mr. Raffarin would be 
replaced if the constitution failed in France, and after a 30-minute 
meeting with Mr. Chirac in Élysée Palace on Monday, the affable but 
unpopular prime minister said, "There will be developments today or tomorrow."

He declined to say whether he had offered his resignation, telling 
reporters: "I'm going for a stroll around Paris. See you later."

The euro fell sharply on Monday as traders in the United States sold the 
currency a day after the French vote, slipping to a seven-month low of 
about $1.25 in late afternoon trading.

Farmers, workers and the unemployed were among those who led the way to the 
defeat of the European Union constitution in France, voting no in high 
numbers largely over concerns about the economy. European leaders who had 
promoted the constitution as the logical, if revolutionary, next step in 
the growth and unification of the 25-member bloc could not hide their 
disappointment.

The most serious potential foreign fallout from the no vote in France came 
on Monday from Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, who called for a "time 
for reflection," saying it was too early to decide whether a popular vote 
could go ahead in his country.

"Underneath all this there is a more profound question, which is about the 
future of Europe and, in particular, the future of the European economy and 
how we deal with the modern questions of globalization and technological 
change," Mr. Blair told journalists during a vacation in Italy. Nine 
European Union members ratified the constitution before the French 
referendum. But France's no vote is likely to kill the constitution - at 
least in its current form - because it requires approval by all of the 
union's member countries.

In a sense, consideration of the constitution by other member countries, 
including the Dutch vote on Wednesday, is only a political exercise in 
democracy to allow each of them the right to proclaim approval or 
rejection. But the Dutch vote is important nonetheless.

At the moment there is no plan to revise the constitution and put it before 
member states again. If the Dutch also reject the constitution, it would be 
that much harder to persuade the rest of the member states to go forward 
with putting any document up for ratification, particularly those that plan 
to do it by popular vote.

"This is a critical moment in Europe's history," said Jean-Luc Dehaene, a 
former Belgian prime minister and one of the architects of the 
constitution, in a telephone interview. "It is clear that the French no 
brings Europe to a kind of standstill." The French, he said, "are 
completely without orientation and in a period of complete uncertainty."

The Netherlands, which like France was one of the six founding members of 
Europe's original union, "will not be in a position to play its leadership 
role in Europe if it votes no," Mr. Dehaene said. As for Britain, he added, 
"It is not impossible that the British government will hide behind the back 
of France to avoid the difficult discussion in Britain."

For the time being, the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said he 
would announce a decision on whether to go ahead with a vote no earlier 
than next week.

Mr. Blair's tentative remarks contrasted with the bold approach taken by 
other European leaders, including Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany 
and Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, who said the 
ratification process must go on despite the French vote.

"Life continues," Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, 
said at ld a news conference at the union's headquarters in Brussels after 
France's repudiation of the treaty. "For me, the worst that could happen is 
if, as a consequence of that, you or the citizens of the European Union or 
the leaders of the European Union enter into a zone of paralysis 
psychologically."

In Washington, the State Department, in a brief statement on the vote, 
emphasized continuity in trans-Atlantic relations, not concern. The 
administration has remained aloof from the particulars of the 
constitutional debate.

"We welcome a strong, integrated Europe that is an effective partner for 
addressing the many challenges we face together," said a spokesman, Noel 
Clay. "We have such a partnership now with the European Union and expect to 
continue to build on this relationship, however the E.U. evolves."

The constitution is intended to provide an ambitious, streamlined system 
for growth and greater unity in the newly expanded 25-country bloc. If the 
document is abandoned, member states will have to continue working together 
under a cumbersome and limiting array of existing treaties and rules 
adopted when the union was smaller.

In an effort to salvage the European unification process, some European 
figures were sugarcoating their earlier dire predictions of the 
consequences of the French veto.

Not long ago, for example, Romano Prodi, the former president of the 
European Commission, had predicted that a French no would mean "the end of 
Europe." On Monday he called the outcome "a disaster," but insisted that 
the union would continue to function under current rules and that things 
could be worse.

"This is still better than a war of secession like the United States once 
had," he said in a telephone interview. "I'm serious now. We must keep this 
perspective in mind. We don't have a treaty, but we also don't have wars."

That is certainly true, but the lowest-common-denominator approach was not 
what the leaders of Europe had in mind when they embarked on the drafting 
of the constitution, a process that took two and a half years.

After the French vote, the European Commission president, José Manuel Durão 
Barroso, warned of "a risk of contagion."

Indeed, contagion could come as early as Wednesday, when voters in the 
Netherlands go to the polls to pass judgment on the constitution.

After the French vote, the Dutch prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, told 
reporters, "The Dutch, of course, do not take any orders from France." But 
a new Dutch poll taken after the French vote and made public on Monday for 
NOS public television showed an increase in voters intending to vote no to 
55 percent, up from 51 percent just two days ago. Only 38 percent said they 
planned to vote in favor of the constitution.

President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, whose country has yet to 
decide whether to support the charter, declared it "a thing of the past." 
He added, "The French referendum, and its result, clearly demonstrated the 
deep division that exists between the European elite and the citizens of 
Europe."

That view was underscored by the voting trends in the vote in France.

According to the Ipsos polling agency, 70 percent of farmers voted no, 
despite the fact that France is the largest recipient of European Union 
farm subsidies.

Public and blue-collar workers and the unemployed, all low-pay groups 
vulnerable in a country with more than 10 percent unemployment, voted no by 
60 percent to 79 percent.

Although most of the Socialist Party hierarchy lobbied in favor of the 
treaty, 56 percent of Socialist voters rejected it. On the political 
extremes, 98 percent of the Communist Party and 93 percent of the extreme 
right National Front voted no.

Paris and Lyon, two of France's biggest cities, and pro-European regions 
like Alsace, Brittany and the Loire Valley voted yes, while rural France 
and smaller cities and towns voted no. Most surprisingly, 55 percent of 
people ages 18 to 25 rejected the treaty, underscoring what appeared to be 
a lack of trust in the future of Europe and the leadership of France.

Humiliated and badly weakened in the eyes of both his own citizens and the 
world, Mr. Chirac is now at one of the lowest points of his 10-year 
presidency. The French media openly mocked him today.

"Did he manage to sleep so well on Sunday night?" the weekly L'Express 
asked in its latest edition on Monday. "He must realize to what extent the 
failure of the referendum is a personal disaster."

Serge July, the editor of the left-leaning daily Libération, referred today 
to "the disastrous end" of Mr. Chirac's "reign," while the daily Le Monde 
said the president "begins the end of his mandate discredited."

In Poland, the daily Zycie Warszawy joked Monday about the "Polish plumber 
who petrified France," a reference to the mythical worker from new European 
Union members like Poland who is free to move west and willing to work for 
lower pay than Frenchmen.

On Monday, Mr. Chirac held closed-door meetings, not only with Mr. Raffarin 
but also with a number of officials who might possibly replace him, 
including Nicolas Sarkozy, the leader of their ruling Union for a Popular 
Movement but a political enemy of Mr. Chirac; Interior Minister Dominique 
de Villepin, considered like a political son to Mr. Chirac; Defense 
Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie; and François Bayrou, the leader of the 
Christian-right Union for French Democracy.

Mr. Raffarin is being blamed in some quarters for the rejection of the 
constitution because of opinion surveys indicating that voters used the 
ballot partly to punish the French government's failure to tackle high 
unemployment and painful cost-cutting changes.

Mr. de Villepin is considered the front-runner for the prime minister's 
job, but he is not liked by much of the French political establishment, 
including deputies in Parliament who consider him distant from the people 
and complain that he does not bother to consult them.

A CSA opinion poll for France 3 television showed that Mr. Sarkozy, the 
most popular politician on the right, was the public's choice with 25 
percent of voters wanting him to become prime minister. Only 11 percent 
favored Mr. de Villepin.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company