If both French and Dutch reject
the project of Constitution in
the coming days, 6 obvious consequences
are to be anticipated; however
a seventh less obvious one could
be the most serious of all in case
the future European political forces
and leaders are not fully up to
the resulting challenge.
First
consequence: The Constitution
is dead and buried contrary to
what is being said here and there.
The ratification process will stop
by lack of political will on the
part of the remaining member-states.
Not one political leader will want
to commit an « electoral
suicide » by defending a
text notoriously rejected by two
founding-countries. The case of
Portugal is eloquent where polls
show that the Yes has dropped from
90% three months ago (i.e. before
the French debate started) down
to 40% (vs 30% for No).
Second
consequence: An earthquake will
shake up our national political
classes and the EU system (Council,
Commission, Parliament), and will
last over the 2/3 coming years.
In France, a new government will
be appointed before the end of
June, entrusted with two highly
complex missions: to change the
course of action initiated 3 years
ago by the present government (but
in which direction?) ; to re-design
completely the French position
with regards to the European project
and institutions in the light of
the French referendum results (either
in the sense of a more « sovereignist » position,
or in the sense of a more democratic
and social direction) in order
to rebuild a « pro-Yes » majority.
In the Netherlands, the same issues
will be on the agenda though with
lesser pressure due to the advisory
status of the Dutch referendum.
Third
consequence: Political parties
enter a major crisis in terms of
EU strategy. In both countries,
and most certainly in all other
member-states where some Parliaments
took the liberty to ratify quasi-unanimously
the Constitutional project (knowing
that their public opinion is not
different from the French of the
Dutch ones ; and that the results
in these two countries will increase
public awareness on these issues
throughout the EU), political leaders
will have to respond to a key-question:
how have they all ended up with
such level of disconnection from
their voters on the European issue?
How to rebuild the link with their
citizens? To make it short, how
to get rid of all the inapt advisors,
inefficient « citizen networks »,
and incompetent « experts » who
contributed to create such immense
democratic gap? And above all,
how to make the tremendous interest
shown by citizens in the debate
on the Constitution supplant their
prodigious disinterest for European
elections? As a matter of fact,
these are questions that require
some deep thinking about political
parties and their legitimacy when
it comes to Europe. For our national
political parties, one question
will become central: are they still
capable of handling the European
dimension or has the latter become
a « poisoned present » that
will provoke more and more internal
divisions?
Two things are now certain: the
great majority of the European
opinion will now request the holding
of referenda on all future significant
European treaties; and their leaders
are beginning to understand that
it is time to hold them simultaneously
on a trans-European basis rather
than run for exhausting and uncertain
races.
Fourth
consequence: The emergence
of a great void of political
legitimacy
at the very heart of the European
project. The three main EU institutions,
Council, Commission and Parliament
(the three involved in the elaboration
of the Constitutional project)
are now left without any popular
support.
The
Commission had already lost its
political legitimacy with the
1999 crisis and the absence of
any significant reform ever since;
in fact it has become the institution
that feeds the « No » vote.
The Parliament never managed to
acquire any democratic legitimacy,
a fact that becomes patent when
comparing the gap of citizen interest
between the European elections
and the referenda on the Constitution. A recent poll analyses that 83%
of the French people debated the
Constitution privately while 24%
did in the last European election!
Lastly,
the Council which was one of
the driving forces of the
constitutional project and which
used to be the central political
pillar of the EU system, sees its
legitimacy and competence in « writing
the EU’s future » suddenly
rejected by the people (the French
and Dutch reactions being typical
of that of all EU populations,
especially in EU-15, had they been
asked by referendum too).
Given
that these developments happen
under the positive auspices
of a « pro-European » spirit
largely prevailing among the European
public opinion, it
means the EU is entering a « regime » crisis
at the European level that
will require some thinking and
a very
bold and innovating action in order
to be solved (new actors, new institutions,
new methods). In other words, things
won’t happen over a few months,
but rather over a few years, especially
if we consider the intellectual
deficit of our European political
and administrative elites when
it comes to democratisation. As
indeed, it is this question « How
to associate in a sustainable manner
500 million citizens to the European
decisions?” that becomes
the central European question in
the coming years.
Fifth
consequence: Euroland will
have to dissociate significantly
from
the EU-25. The Euro-zone cannot
afford to wait. It obeys to a number
of political, economic and social
constraints that are completely
different from those weighing on
EU countries that are outside this
area. Citizens there are directly
concerned by the European decisions
impacting on their daily lives
(it is not by chance that the fire
is set by two populations belonging
to the Euro-zone) and they request
more and more that the relevant
political, economic and social
answers are given to their problems. Within
a year from now, it is likely that
the countries of the Euro
zone have to negotiate among themselves
a far more audacious and integrative
treaty than the present Constitutional
project (Europe 2020 will publish
an important paper on this issue
in the coming days). This new treaty
will not be negotiated with any
country outside the Euro zone though
they will be invited to join if
they wish but in compliance with
the criteria defined at its conception
stage.
Sixth
consequence: It is a very specific
group of countries that
will take upon themselves the tasks
of invention and innovation: France,
Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium,
Luxembourg, Spain, Finland, Austria,
Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Italy
(if Berlusconi loses the elections). EU-25 and its weakened institutions
will only have to « manage » what
will de facto become a « great
single market ». Influences
coming from London and Washington
over the conception of a Euroland-based
new European project will be extremely
meagre, contrary to what they were
over the last years for the EU-25.
Impopular projects of enlargement
such as Turkey will be abandoned
as they are supported by the institutions
that now lack political substrate.
These consequences and induced
developments, will not depend on
the political forces in power in
the concerned countries. In
fact they result from two structural
phenomena that will greatly influence
the EU in the coming years : on
the one hand, the emergence of
the peoples and citizens as new
central players in the European
game ; and on the other hand, the
growing differentiation in terms
of logics and interest between
Euroland and EU-25. For this reason
the role played by those men and
women who are about to get actively
involved in finding solutions to
the dead-end situation where our
leaders and institutions took us,
is crucial. Indeed if they do not
manage to give a positive meaning
to the European construction, in
particular by re-initialising a
momentum of integration based on
the democratisation of the EU,
then in 2009, we will have to face
the seventh consequence.
The
seventh consequence is of a political
nature. If by the 2009
European elections, EU democratisation
is not seriously engaged, if the
same elites strangely combining
arrogance and incompetence are
still in charge, then, we must
expect the irruption of a majority
of extremist and anti-democratic
MPs (left and right) in the European
Parliament as a result of populist
votes. If this happens, the EU
will lose track with the post-1945
peaceful and democratic project,
and will resume with the 30’s
and their antidemocratic and xenophobic
nightmare.
From June 2005 onward, it is with
the purpose of avoiding this scenario
that we will work with the greatest
energy.
