Monday, May 23, 2005
Prognostication, Anyone?
Here’s the quote:
Opponents and supporters of the European Union’s new constitution battled on Monday to win over the undecided voters who could determine the fate of the charter in a cliff-hanger referendum on Sunday.
Opinion polls put the “No” camp ahead in France as well as in the Netherlands, which votes on the treaty on June 1, raising the prospect of a double rejection which could hold up European integration and cause jitters on financial markets.
And here’s the question: if the vote on the EU’s constitution fails (particularly in France, but in any nation since adoption can’t be forced and I don’t believe that adoption can be partial--that is, France can’t adopt the constitution while the Netherlands or Germany reject it) what happens to the EU? How devastating would that blow be to their union?
The UK is still a holdout on currency, and adoption in France looks questionable at best. What does the political fallout from that level of failure look like?
Of course, it deserves to be rejected. Instead of a simple document declaring the rights of the individuals, it was rendered as a nitpicky document defining, for example, the legal minutiae of the industries of Western Europe.
There is no simplification in the constitution, and it contains so much detail that it can hardly be described as a constitution; it is a management textbook. The explanatory commentary, which runs to 500 pages, is supposed to explain it to anyone who does not understand the first 500 or so pages. The constitution is nowhere near being a simplifying treaty. It contains minutiae of management detail that one would expect those responsible for looking after our interests to come up with as their modus operandi.
Yeah, that sounds like a brilliant little document to me.
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There is a part of me that supports the whole EU thing, Constitution included. But, it’s the evil, nasty competitive side of me that knows if Europe actually goes through with it then Europe will be nothing more than a tourist destination for rich Americans. Cabo San Lucas for the Bill Gateses. Eventually, Europe will become Tijuana with castles.
The other part of me hopes that the Europeans realize just how bad the “paperwork” is and insist on something that doesn’t take 500 pages to explain or define the curvature of bananas.
Bottom line, I could go either way on this.
You just have to hope, though, that good sense wins the day.
If this EU constitution is rejected, you can pretty well bet they’ll go back to the drawing board, excise the banana-curvature provision, and bring it back for another vote, allegedly “new and improved” because now it needs 1200 pages to explain.