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Old 10th July 2005, 11:34 AM   #1
NoZed Avenger
Penultimate Amazing
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
Posts: 11,286
Voting Notwithstanding, the EU Continues Unabated

My initial -- and admittedly cynical -- reaction to the votes from the French and Dutch was that it would make little difference.

However, enough people -- both here and in the newspapers -- kept saying that the "No" votes were important. I can't say that I was convinced, but everyone appeared so sincere and insistent that I must admit I began to doubt myself.

Almost.

Brussels Journal

Quote:
Brussels Carries On As If Nothing Has Happened.

Before the French and Dutch referendums, I predicted that, if our neighbours voted "No", the EU would ignore the result and implement the constitution as though nothing had happened. The Brussels elites have followed the script to the letter. José Manuel Durrão Barroso, Jacques Chirac, Barbara Windsor and Sid James present Carry on Regardless. Two weeks after the referendums, the European Parliament voted through dozens of Bills that cited the constitution as the source of their authority. One which happened to catch my eye was a report proposing that the British and French representatives on the UN Security Council be merged into a single EU seat. The judicial basis for such a development, said the report, was "the European Constitutional Treaty, which creates a legal personality for the Union and a European Minister for Foreign Affairs". No one was so indelicate as to point out that, without the constitution, the EU has no treaty-making powers. Instead, we carried on as though nothing had changed.

* * *

Almost to a man, Commissioners and MEPs have decreed that the process should continue. The EU is going ahead as though the French and Dutch electorates had voted "Yes", harmonising criminal justice, creating a European Public Prosecutor, establishing a diplomatic service, treating the Charter of Fundamental Rights as justiciable. The constitution is not being smuggled in through the back door; it is swaggering brazenly across the porch.
Will they allow the poor, misguided French and Dutch voters another chance to make the right decision (like Ireland)? Or will they just set up the entire new government without even bothering with a "show" vote?
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