Posted on 06/13/2005 7:30:53 PM PDT by blam
France buries the EU constitution
By David Rennie in Luxembourg
(Filed: 14/06/2005)
France performed a historic about-turn yesterday and abandoned the European Union constitution to its fate, dropping demands that other nations ratify the treaty.
The unexpected move appeared to seal the constitution's doom, even if its most passionate supporters still refuse to accept its demise for several months more. Days before a crisis EU summit, Philippe Douste-Blazy, the French foreign minister, simply waived Paris's insistence that the treaty still be put to the vote, country by country.
Philippe Douste-Blazy
"Our humble and modest position says we simply respect the position of each member state," said Mr Douste-Blazy.
He added that it was not up to France to "dictate" how others should proceed, but then raised the stakes in the battle over the EU budget by accusing Britain of selfishly refusing to pay the bill for enlargement last year, when 10 nations joined the EU.
Senior French officials quietly agreed with British predictions that an EU summit this week would leave individual member states to decide how, or whether, to vote on the constitution, with no deadline or timetable. Without these "the whole thing is being kicked into some very long grass indeed," said one EU official. "You could say it is effectively dead."
A senior French official said: "The heads of state prefer to avoid a debate on the timetable." An original deadline of November 2006 was now "a target date, a date on which we take stock," the French official said.
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, maintained pressure on France to clarify whether it feels capable of holding a second vote on the constitution and obtaining a Yes.
If France says it has no hope of reversing its first No vote, the treaty is effectively dead, because it must be ratified by all 25 member states.
Speaking at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg, Mr Straw said: "There is a general consensus that decisions on whether to proceed with ratification or not should be left to individual member states."
France would be asked to make clear at the European Council on Thursday "how they intend to proceed", Mr Straw added. The apparent demise of the EU constitution plunges Europe into its deepest political crisis for decades.
The drafting of the text took four years of intense negotiation. It was born after EU leaders agreed that the spider's web of overlapping treaties was not fit to govern life in the new, greatly expanded EU of 25 nations, soon to rise to 27 with the addition of Romania and Bulgaria in 2007.
France led calls for it to be called a "constitution" and its drafting was presided over by the former French president, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
Its over-arching aim was to streamline the process of taking decisions and to create a new EU presidency and foreign minister. France, which first threw the project into question with its No vote on May 29, had been in the vanguard of moves to keep the treaty alive.
President Jacques Chirac had repeatedly called on other member states to carry on with referendums or parliamentary votes on the text. Desperate to avoid being isolated after a No vote, Mr Chirac allied himself with 10 nations that had already ratified the text.
His government endorsed a contentious argument that all nations were obliged to hold votes before a November 2006 deadline - a regulation that federalist leaders claimed to find buried deep in the text.
That position has now abruptly collapsed, helped by increasingly bold hints from countries such as Denmark, the Czech Republic and Poland that they had no appetite for holding referendums on the treaty, with in the face of opinion polls predicting a long string of No votes.
Holland - whose referendum three days after the French vote delivered an even more emphatic No - has been conspicuously silent.
The Dutch government tersely declared it had heard the voice of its voters, and would not now send the constitution to parliament for formal ratification.
The final text that emerges from the European Council on Friday or Saturday is, nonetheless, unlikely explicitly to declare the constitution dead. Many are pushing for a "freeze" or a "pause for reflection" in the hope of resurrecting the treaty later.
One EU official said: "No one is ready to kill this thing off, but an open-ended deadline is a tacit admission that this thing is in serious difficulties. That might be combined with a freeze."
The Danish foreign minister, Per Stig Moeller, hinted that his government, which longs to scrap a Sept 27 referendum - had serious doubts about a pause, in case others tried amending the treaty while it was in the freeze.
From what little I know about this whole situation...that's my impression too.
You've got it correct.
Without the rebate for the UK, they would pay 15 times as much as France does. Even with the rebate the UK pays more than France, and still France goes on to accuse Britain of "selfishly refusing to pay the bill for enlargement last year".
What Gaul!
""Our humble and modest position says we simply respect the position of each member state," said Mr Douste-Blazy. "
That sure sounds like someone took the French aside and said " You keep this up and we'll blow the lid off of.... "
Oh, I am so sad. NOT!!!
The Dutch voted it down for more or less the opposite reason; they've had a hard time recently with their famed ''tolerant'' culture.
In plain English, this utterly moronic alleged ''constitution'' is starkest idiocy in action. Only legislators (well, wth did you expect?, 7 out of 7 leges have ''approved'' it, w/o any vote of the citizens of the respective nations) and Spaniards (again, wth did you expect?...quaking in their boots after a round of Islamic terrorism that killed several hundred) will vote to enact such a disgraceful and idiotic, AND self-enslaving, document into what passes for ''law'' in the ESSR.
Hell's bells, man, even the old Soviet ''constitution'' was more coherent than this batch of bilge. Don't even think of taking my word for it!
Look up the USSR constitution (which was absolute kwap, not worth the paper on which it was printed, because totalitarians love to show the faux-emulation of generally republican principles), and compare it to this new ESSR nonsensical so-called ''constitution''.
Couldn't happen to a nicer continent.
They might well seek a merger partner (or two, or twenty-five) which a.) had better future prospects and b.) in which they would be the surviving corporation.
That over-extended corporation is France. The mega-corp they were attempting to form is the EU.
The Euro has decoupled from other currencies, and is in a tailspin. There are some interesting charts here:
http://www.321gold.com/editorials/chan/chan061305.html
This previous post details the absurd salaries.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1421157/posts
France Surrenders! (again)
The very concept of socialism is anti-self-deterministic by definition; when a socialist gov't utters its decrees and ukases, both the individual and any non-dominating population group have one of two choices, namely:
1) Knuckle under
2) Get the hell out of Dodge.
Spin, is it? What rubbish. The French leftists voted en masse and in lockstep (gee, now THAT was a shock, eh?) against the pseudo-constitution.
Look, laddiebuck, the froggies can't possibly ''return'' to protectionism, simply because they've never abandoned the notion. Protectionism is the national economic equivalent of attempting to call ''time out'' or ''freeze the ball''. Doesn't work over time, never has, never will, although assorted nations have managed by force against their respective populations to maintain a protectionist regime for a little while.
Which little demonstrable truth, of course, makes protectionism the perfect policy for the froggies. I assume you know the history of this besotted nation after said nation's most serious debacle, to wit and specifically, WW II. Good, glad you do know it.
About time for the SIXTH alleged ''Republic'', I'd say. Merely superimpose a green crescent over the vaunted ''bleu, blanc, et rouge'' and voila tout!.
Simplest thing in the world...well, except for most froggie politicos, who are far, far simpler.
FReegards to you.
Trading forex is highly influenced by mob psychology, though; most extended currency moves overshoot by 20% or so, even more when a panic component is thrown in (think MXN, 1997, or RUR, August 1998, to mention a couple of recent examples).
Long term -- say a decade or so -- EUR is toast, absolutely insupportable as a currency, until and unless the Maastricht agreement is rewritten top to bottom.
Will this occur? I've no view...but if you hold a gun to my head, I'd say that I doubt such renegotiation of the agreement will, or even could possibly, occur. The political class in the original signatory nations (pls note that UK and the 'Eastern' European nations are not part of this group) will never permit a renegotiation, even unto EUR's collapse.
They ''know best'', dontchasee?
In your honour, Cicero:
Quo usque tandem abutere, EMU, patientia nostra?
Fine analogy!
Good show, SAJ. You have stated quite succinctly, and with the proper amount of Old West aphorism, what socialism is -
"The very concept of socialism is anti-self-deterministic by definition; when a socialist gov't utters its decrees and ukases, both the individual and any non-dominating population group have one of two choices, namely:
1) Knuckle under
2) Get the hell out of Dodge."
I plan to use it with some of my friends in the West whose understanding of socialism is sorely lacking.
FReegards!
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