eurealist.co.uk

Culled from The International Herald

France; “In a bid to separate the vote on the constitution from Turkey’s ambition to join the EU, the amendment to the French Constitution that was voted in by the two houses of the French Parliament on Monday requires future governments to hold referendums on any enlargement of the Union. The revision of the French Constitution that allows the government to transfer responsibilities to the European Union in line with the Union’s new constitutional treaty and to put the treaty to a referendum.

Opinion polls indicate that most of the French plan to vote in favour of the EU constitution, but that majority has shrunk from almost 70 percent in September to 58 percent this month.

That appears to have prompted the government to speed up the timetable of the referendum: The vote Monday was held two weeks earlier than planned, and the referendum itself, initially announced for the autumn, could take place as early as May”.

The point I would like to address is that the French seem to have appropriated to themselves a veto on any further enlargement of the Union. Although I can see the reason the French government would wish to offer this crumb of democratic control to their people, in order to defuse the row over Turkey’s entry into the Union which the French seem to particularly object. I cannot see that it can be up to the French people alone to decide this issue by referendum, when the people of the other states will not have a voice, this seems to me as being against the concept of the Union.

Of course from my position I would like to see a referendum on many of the powers granted to the Union, I would like to see a referendum on EU Citizenship, we have no choice in the matter, a referendum on the EU arrest warrant would be nice, also on the powers of Europol or the perhaps a referendum on the EU driving licence.

We of course have been promised a referendum on joining the Euro and have maintained an opt out from that in the Constitution, but this will not stop the others going ahead if they wish, and a further point is, if we are now in the territory of offering a referendum on specific parts of the integration, certain members of the union find objectionable perhaps we could extend that concept to all the citizens of the Union, at least then we would have some form of democratic control over these self imposed leaders.

But this is not what is going to happen because these people do not want us the voters to have any say in the matter.

From Ratification Bottleneck;

“Nevertheless the risk of frequent recourse to popular consultations at the national level could complicate – if not paralyse – the integration process should not be over looked. An example is President Chirac`s recent proposal to hold a referendum on Turkey’s entry into the European Union. It is clear that if national leaders choose systematically to consult the electorate in order to avoid having to manage directly the more delicate steps in European integration. It will become increasingly difficult to reach common or strategic position on the more important problems or events.”