EU -- down but not out

EU -- down but not out

In a seminar on the European Union in Jakarta last month,
French Ambassador Renaud Vignal cautioned that a rejection by
French voters of the European Constitution Treaty should not be
construed as "the end of the world." A rejection, which is
precisely what Sunday's referendum in France produced, would
probably hold back the process of Europe integration, but it
would not unravel the European Union and all the achievements it
has made to date, the ambassador argued.

Still, the French rejection almost surely deals a fatal blow
to the treaty itself because the consensus by European leaders
when they penned their agreement in October last year was that
the constitution would be sent back to the drawing board if any
one single member failed to ratify it. Given this rule, other
ratification processes, including Wednesday's referendum in the
Netherlands, are nothing but an academic exercise.

That it should be France, of all the 25 members, which
rejected the treaty first, was something that many did not
foresee, at least not until late last year. As the largest member
and the major founder along with Germany, France's participation
in anything Europe had come to be taken for granted. At least,
that is what leaders in Paris thought before Sunday.

Obviously, they could not have been more wrong.

Many analysts said the French "no" vote was not so much a
rejection of the idea of a more unified Europe through this
single constitution as a rejection of the government in Paris for
forging ahead with the plan too soon when more mundane bread-and-
butter issues still preoccupied the minds of many French people.

Some of them have even, rightly or wrongly, attributed the
current high unemployment and soaring inflation in France to the
2002 switch to the euro. On this, many other Europeans,
particularly the Germans, have the same sentiments. For wealthier
European countries, the switch to the euro has been so painful
that they bear resentment toward any plan to step up the European
integration process at this stage.

In the wake of the French vote, few people have talked about
the treaty and what a single constitution would mean for the
European people. That question is simply irrelevant to most
people in Europe today, in spite of the vigorous campaign by its
supporters.

Sunday's rejection shows that President Jacques Chirac and his
government are out of touch with their own people. It is just as
well that Paris, along with nine other members, decided on
holding popular consultations to find out what the people felt.
The other 15 members have ratified, or would seek to ratify the
treaty, through parliamentary process, which is a harder way to
gauge public sentiment.

Obviously, Euro-skeptics and other detractors would try to
make the most out of this victory. President Chirac meanwhile
would have to prepare for the political fallout from this defeat.
And as usual, the doomsayers would exaggerate the impact of the
French vote.

But going by what the French ambassador said, the European
Union is nowhere near crumbling.

As the European Union has come this far, it is unlikely that
Sunday's vote would roll back all the hard work, and all the
sacrifices, that their leaders and people have made in the past
to bring about a more integrated, more unified and more peaceful
Europe. No one was left in doubt, even after the French rejection
on Sunday, that closer integration is the way forward for Europe.

It's nevertheless sad to see the Constitution Treaty, the
result of years of hard work and painful negotiations, about to
be shelved. But if the constitution is to be the principles
governing relations for the people in Europe, and between Europe
and the rest of the world, then its introduction must have the
popular support of the people living within Europe.

The French "no" vote tells us that no matter how good and how
desirable a single constitution is for Europe's future, its time
has not yet come.