Bury the treaty to keep the European project alive

The people of France and the Netherlands have made their decision and the European elites will have to accept this. Although the process of ratification is not yet finished, it is hard to imagine the constitution has any realistic chance of being adopted. Politically it is dead, says Stefan Auer of the Dublin European Institute.

In hindsight, it seems clear that the proponents of the Yes side boxed themselves in the corner by repeating that a No vote would be disastrous for France, the Netherlands and Europe; if you were for Europe, you had to endorse the constitution. This was a mistake for two reasons.

Firstly, it proved counter-productive to threaten the voters in France and the Netherlands and this strategy backfired. Secondly, the claim that a No vote would have dire consequences for Europe may prove a self-fulfilling prophecy. The incessant talk about the paralysis of the European Union will help to create this paralysis.

Not surprisingly, opponents of the European Union interpret the defeat of the constitution as the defeat of Europe. Yet, we know that many people both in France and Holland voted against the treaty because they felt that it did not go far enough; they wanted more Europe, not less. They wanted a Europe that would protect its citizens against the excesses of unfettered free markets; a Europe that would speak with a louder voice in international affairs. They wanted a Europe that would be more French, or more Dutch, or more socialist and/or more anti-American than the proposed constitution allows for.

In contrast, many people in Britain, for example, would argue that the proposed text already goes way too far in its attempt to impose the continental model of a social free market economy on the whole continent. If many French are principally opposed to what they call the Anglo-Sachson neo-liberal model and desire more protectionist policies and regulations, most people in Britain would reject the constitution out of fear of more protectionist policies and regulations.

Both sets of objections are quite misleading as the treaty is neither based on neo-liberal orthodoxies, nor is it socialist. Yet, the debate shows once again that people in different countries have radically different views about what Europe should do for them. Europe has always meant many different things to many different people.

The Constitution is supposed to reflect these different visions, while, at the same time, bringing them closer together. Ironically, the attempt to bring more transparency, coherence and unity into the system seems to lead to more polarisation and divisions.

John Bruton, the EU ambassador to the US and one of the participants in the constitutional convention, observed that it appears in hindsight that it was a mistake to call this treaty a constitution. Yet the title is not too ambitious, the document is. In fact, one could argue that Europe already has its constitution, which consists of all the major treaties that define the role and scope of all EU institutions. The disadvantage of the current system is that it is so complex that very few people really understand it. The new treaty aims at significantly simplifying these arrangements, but it does this with a document that is anything but simple. Anyway, a simpler system makes it more difficult for national systems to adopt the European project as it suits them.

Where should we go from here? I think this document should be abandoned. Europe is more than just the EU and the EU is more than just this treaty. This is important to stress in order to prevent the defeat of the treaty being interpreted as a defeat of the EU. Let there be no doubts; this is a serious setback for the process of European integration, but this setback is not a disaster. It could be made into a disaster, if the European leaders in their meeting in Brussels in two weeks time choose to ignore political realities and continue in the ratification process of a legal document that in its current form has no prospect of being accepted by the peoples of Europe. They should bury the treaty to keep the European project alive.