French voters reject EU charter via BBC News
Although there have been rumours and polls going round for several weeks that the French might say ‘non’ to the proposed EU Constitution, I was surprised this evening to hear that the exit polls were predicting a 55% vote against the proposals and now after 85% of the votes have been counted it seems like the pro-constitution lobby has been defeated. Whilst the likelihood of one or more countries rejecting the constitution was, in my opinion, fairly high, I didn’t expect the French—often viewed as the cheerleaders of Europe along with the Germans—to come out against the proposed changes. However, when you look into the issues a bit deeper there are several reasons why they may voted the opposite way to what some of us expected.
First of all, the French have benefited enormously from the subsidies handed out by the EU, particularly the Common Agricultural Policy which, last time I looked, consumed about half the EU’s annual budget. They have also done well from the more conservative policies protecting EU members, such as the Common External Tariff. The proposed constitution, in parts at least, aims to promote a more liberal style of economics within the EU, which would actually hit France hard and probably benefit the British more than anyone (although the usual grumblings about our annual rebate have started again).
Secondly, the constitution is moving in the direction of abolishing national vetoes in favour of majority voting, at least when deciding some policies. This removes a lot of power from countries such as France who were able in the past to put a stop to any measures that they strongly agreed with, whereas now they will have to go along with the majority instead. On the other hand one could argue that they will stand a better chance of pushing through policies they support now that their opponents no longer have the veto either, but I imagine most people will notice a weakening of their own country’s perceived power more than a measure which, on balance, is fairer and more democratic.
Thirdly, France hasn’t been doing all that well economically as of late—apart from anything else unemployment is running at around 10% (if I recall correctly that’s about as bad as when Thatcher was in power and we had protests about unemployment over here). Just as mid-term elections (usually the local elections in the case of the UK) are often used by voters to express their discontent with the current government by voting for the opposition parties, this referendum could have been seen by the French people as a way of sticking the boot into Jacques Chirac, especially as he made such a big thing of his support for the constitution.
Finally, the French might have just had enough of their politicians saying “you must vote in favour of this constitution, it’s really important” and decided to vote no partially to show that they could and in doing so make a gesture of defiance against the government. I doubt this was the deciding factor for most people, but for floating voters it could have swayed them in the direction of a no vote.
As you may have guessed already, I’m against this constitution for a number of reasons, so I’m glad the French have rejected it this early on. In theory we’ll still be having a referendum on it in this country but unless Blair feels like taking on a challenge (I imagine we’re a lot more Euroskeptic than the French for a start) and the possibility of losing such a vote followed by the inevitable challenges to his leadership I think he might let the matter drop on the wayside. Then again he might decide to take up the EU Presidency this July, serve the six month term and then hold a referendum on the basis that he was going to go at some point anyway so he might as well try and push that last policy through before the end.
For the moment though, the constitution has been dealt a bitter blow in a rejection from the people who you would expect at first glance to be its biggest supporters. There’s also the potential for this result to have a knock-on effect whereby the other countries think “if people as pro-European as the French don’t want this constitution, there must be something wrong with it—I’m voting no!”, in which case the whole issue might be dropped from the agenda and we’ll never get the chance to vote on it in this country. Only time will tell, but for the moment I’m happy to see the French telling their leaders where they can stuff this 400+ page “tidying up exercise”.
Yay! Good old French!
Was wonderign what it was all about when I heard the news yesterday, this website has a bit more info in why people don’t like it: http://www.nocampaign.com/
Ick. What a completely biased and fact-free website. It repeatedly states opinion as fact, and doesn’t back up its arguments. Not that I was planning to vote no (or yes – I haven’t really thought about it yet), but that website is enough to send any sensible, pragmatic person right to the other end of the scale.
To be fair, the Yes Campaign is just as bad, in fact one of their top “features” is an attack on the No Campaign for not having named people who have donated money to them – that’s hardly a reason to vote yes for a constitution. In fact if you read some of their other articles they seem to exist more as a challenge to the No Campaign than as a pro-constitution lobby, not to mention the fact that they seem to brand everyone who is against the constitution as “anti-European”, which is ridiculous (I don’t like some of the things in the constitution and I’d probably vote against it, but that doesn’t mean I want Britain out of Europe altogether).
Basically they’re just two web sites spouting mindless propoganda against/for the constitution and indeed the EU in general, rather like the tabloid newspapers really. I wouldn’t come to a decision either way having read the web sites. The only way to really decide is to read and understand the constitution but I doubt even Tony Blair has done that.
Eeep – if it wasn’t for the different colours and ideologies both these websites are exactly the same!
To be honest – I don’t know that much about it. Think I might stick with the anarchistic view as detailed in Make Borders History
😛
Not knowing much about it is likely to make people vote no purely out of conservatism (as in a resistance to change and a fear of the unknown). The Yes lobby hasn’t really made a point of informing people what the constitution means for Britain and how it will benefit ordinary people, in fact most of their publicity has been based around horror stories of what will happen if we say “no” rather than promoting the benefits of what a “yes” vote would bring. Faced with a choice of the unknown and no good reasons to support voting in favour, most people will fall back to their natural reaction which is, for better or worse, to reject it.