Edward has already pointed to an interesting post by Henry Farrell regarding European politics in the last post, but I think the argument is important enough for a separate pointer and a little more explanation.
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Tag Archives: constitution
Le Petit ‘Non’
Well, if you believe Times (and after last weeks episode with the Independent I believe no-one), le petit ‘non’, like its equivalent le petit mensonge, is not all that serious after all. According to the Times, Britain is working with other European states to draw up plans to keep the European Union constitution alive if there is a narrow ?non? vote in France next week. Just a soupcon of ‘no’ will, in the end ‘help the medicine go down’.
French Economic Slowdown Puts More Pressure on May 29
French economic growth slowed more than expected in the first quarter and this is bound to have a negative impact on yesterdays ‘big push’ to win support for the ‘yes’ in the European constitution referendum. Gross domestic product in what is Europe’s third-largest economy grew January -March by only 0.2%. This compares with the October-December period, when it expanded by a revised 0.7%.
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Turkish Accession Talks And The French Vote
People in Turkey are getting nervous. If French voters reject the Consitution Treaty later this month, it will be for a whole string of reasons, none of which necessarily are related to any of the others. Some will vote against the treaty because it is perceived as removing sovereignty too much, others because they feel it leaves too much room for national sovereignty (the ‘social dumping’ debate). But possibly ‘no’ voters hold one view in common: they don’t like the idea of Turkey joining the EU.
Now many of the consequences of a ‘no’ vote – if ‘no’ vote there be – are unforseeable. But one distinct possibility would be that among the items contained in the ‘plan B’ rescue package would be a proposal to review the state of play with the Turkey accession process. This possibility is exercising the mind of Morgan Stanley’s Serhan Cevic no end. Mine to. Full declaration: I support Turkey’s *eventual* membership of the EU.
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Hanging In The Balance
As opinion polls produce results wobbling uncomfortably back-and-forth between ‘yes’ and a ‘no’, France is in the grips of a chaotic day of ‘solidarity under duress’ whose consequences for 29 May seem hard to foresee.
News that parliaments in Germany, Austria and Slovakia have approved the constitution treaty is tempered by the results of the latest poll from the Netherlands, and a growing awareness of the possible uncertainty of forthcoming votes in Denmark, Poland and Ireland (at this stage the Czech Republic has still to decide on whether to have a referendum). It is taken as read by all concerned that the constitution faces a major obstacle in the UK referendum to be held in 2006.
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Bloggeurs In The News
On Thursday it was John Thornhill in the FT, then yesterday Stephen Castle of the Independent joined in. Topic du jour: the battle in cyberspace for the hearts and minds of the French voters.
Conspiracy Theory One: the US administration wants Europe to adopt the constitutional treaty because it would kill off nation states and allow Washington to deal with a more pliable Brussels.
Conspiracy Theory Two: the Bush administration is secretly financing the No campaign in France because it wants to kill off Europe’s ambitions to forge a common foreign policy and rival the US on the world stage.
Financial Times Thursday 28 AprilOne says that a vote for the EU constitution would please George Bush; another uses a computer game format with arrows from a “yes” vote to a “game over” box. Not only are French opponents of the EU constitution ahead in the opinion polls they are also winning the battle of the blogs.
Independent Saturday 30 April
Scary Stuff
In a post which appeared earlier this week Tobias asks us whether, given some of the possible consequences of a French “non”, it might not be reasonable to ‘scare’ voters a little by spelling out some of the potential fallout which might follow a French rejection of the Constitution Treaty.
Perhaps the phrasing is unfortunate, but undoubtedly voters in Eurozone countries need to think long and hard about one especially sensitive area of impact: the future of the euro itself.
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We don’t have a Plan B.
Because no one has one. Well, no one has a public plan about how to handle one or more rejections of the European consitution in upcoming national referenda. But as the French referendum is approaching and the numbers do not look too good for the “yes” camp, unofficial Plan Bs are suddenly everywhere, if only to scare the naysaying Gauls into becoming responsible citizens. I know it’s common knowledge by now, but let me repeat it once more – a French “non” would be the worst case, and have possibly nuclear consequences for the EU as we know it. So scaring the voters a little seems like a reasonable approach to me.
In this vein, Bettina Thalmeyer of the Munich based Center for Applied Policy Research has put together a list of possibilities for the day after (and has published a paper about it (in German)) – hoping that it will not be May 30 (the translation and slight modifications are mine, table in the extended).
Venice Commission on Bosnia-Herzegovina
Teekay was looking forward to the Venice Commission’s report on Bosnia-Herzegovina last week. (The Venice Commission, for those of you who don’t lie awake at nights in excited anticipation of its next publication, is the constitutional reform advisory body of the Council of Europe, which in turn is not to be condused with the European Council.)
Well, the report’s out – not yet on their website but they’ve sent me a copy. It’s not as radical as some in Bosnia-Herzegovina might have liked, but given the Venice Commission’s normally relatively anodyne pronouncements it’s pretty strong stuff.
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It’s all in the question
Ever since the UK government unveiled the question it intends to ask in a referendum on the EU constitution opinion polls which use that question have shown a marked swing in favour of the Treaty.
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