Yes-campaign blog - July 2005

By Richard Laming

10 July 2005
Tart

Let's hope the Luxembourgers vote Yes in the referendum today, as a response to Jack Straw if nothing else.

Jack Straw, who is the British foreign minister, said at the opening of the British presidency that "The original plan for a federal Europe is dead. That was a message from the French and Dutch no votes in their referendums."

That's a good reason for Luxembourg to vote Yes.

Of course, there is more to it than this. Jack Straw's own policy at time of the French and Dutch referendums was to support French and Dutch Yes votes. What would he have said in the event of his own policy being successful?

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7 July 2005
A new kind of debate

I wrote earlier in the week about the forthcoming referendum in Luxembourg on Sunday. It's a vote on a constitutional treaty that has been rejected by the voters in France and the Netherlands. Is it conceivable that Luxembourg will sign up to a next stage of European integration leaving behind two of its long-standing partners? I don't think so.

But if the constitution isn't going to go ahead, then what's at stake on Sunday? What will the vote be about?

I think that, ironically, the exit from the scene of the constitutional treaty can actually lead to a purer debate about the future of Europe, based more on the underlying principles of the EU.

A number of the reasons for voting No were based on details of the text, and the fear that the implementation of the constitution would cement them into the EU and make them almost impossible to change. Now that the text is dead, that fear can be put to one side.

The choice of whether to vote Yes or No can be based more on the overall vision of what kind of Europe we want - more integrated, or less - rather than on the detail of individual articles. (A debate about the individual articles will return, but only when we have a new text and that won't be for a while.)

You can read more about this idea here on EUObserver.com (http://euobserver.com/?aid=19519&rk=1). The vote on Sunday will be more like the debates we have in pubs and meeting rooms and less like the kind of debate that goes on in law faculties and court rooms. In a way, I think that's a good thing.

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3 July 2005
Three - that's the magic number

I had to laugh when I read an e-mail circular exhorting the people of Luxembourg to vote Yes in the referendum next Sunday because otherwise the constitution might fail and not come into force. Somehow, I think that the future of the European constitution will not be decided next Sunday.

Regular readers of this blog will know my view that the constitution should have been declared dead after the French and Dutch votes. If a No vote in a referendum does not actually block the proposal that was being voted on, the sincerity of the whole referendum process comes into question. (And I am putting that mildly.)

But that's not the interesting point here. What deserves a closer look is the suggestion that, if one assumes that the constitution is still alive, a Luxembourg No vote might kill it. The reasons behind this argument fascinate me.

Luxembourg is a founding member state of the European Union, of course, and we are told that three FMS rejections of the constitution will probably be fatal. But why three and not two?

My Spanish pro-European friends have told me passionately that their votes should not count for less than those of the French and the Dutch, and that it would therefore be unfair if the constitution was killed by those two countries alone. I can see the logic here but I don't agree with it. The French and Dutch No votes count for more than the Spanish Yes vote not because they were cast by France and the Netherlands but because they were No votes and not Yes votes. All countries may be equal, but all outcomes certainly are not. The swing voters who decide elections do so because of the way they vote, not because of who they are.

But if we accept the Spanish logic, and it appears that the Luxembourgers do in holding their referendum at all, why does Luxembourg suddenly have a veto over the constitution which France and the Netherlands did not? I haven't yet received a Spanish e-mail complaining that the Luxembourg result should not override the Spanish vote, but in their own terms they'd be right.

So what is going on? What lies behind the claim that the constitution can be killed by three No votes but not two? The possibility that some member states might have "difficulties" ratifying the constitution was foreseen in Declaration 30, which suggests that the ratification process can survive five No votes before the sixth brings it to a halt. It doesn't guarantee that the constitution will be able to come into force on such circumstances, but it is not killed outright.

But that happens after six No votes, not three, so Declaration 30 is not an explanation.

I think what's going on is this. The ratification process in Luxembourg has taken on a life of its own, but not surprisingly the people of Luxembourg are now rather quizzical about the whole thing. They will be asked to traipse down to the polls to express an opinion on a document that no longer seems to mean anything. The referendum is merely a matter of going through the motions. It is as though the people of Luxembourg were voting on the constitution of Azkaban. It is a fictional vote. In this case, fictional arguments seem to suffice. The reason that three No votes would kill the constitution is that this would be the third No vote. There is no more to it than that.

And I think that's a pity. There is more to the Luxembourg referendum than that. But if the pro-Europeans are merely going to repeat the old slogans rather than adapting to the new era, they are not going to win the confidence of the citizens. Let's be honest: the future of the European Union is not at stake next Sunday, but the opportunity to strike a blow for a new approach to European integration just might be.

These blog entries first appeared on www.yes-campaign.net. The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of Federal Union or of the Yes campaign.