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Eurealist :: Main Page: “EU French Referendum
by Eurealist on May 17, 2005 08:55AM (BST)

With two of the latest opinion polls released Monday indicated that a majority of French voters would reject the EU constitution, as official campaigning opened and with less than two weeks to go before a May 29 referendum it is looking like a nail biting wait is in store for all us EU watchers. The No campaign has been steadily gaining ground since March, but along with the increased yes campaign spending in late April came a lift for yes campaigners, this seems to be now dropping back a bit, giving the No`s a two per cent increase since early May.

Of seven other surveys since the start of May, three predicted a win for the “yes”, three for the “no” and one an even 50-50 split. Once the margin of error is factored in, the polls suggest a statistical dead heat.

We should bear in mind that within 10 minutes of the Maastricht polls closing the French government had already informed No. 10, that the official figures showed the yes side had squeaked in by 51% of the vote. It is obvious that the French have a super fast counting system, we can only hope that speed does not incur a penalty on accuracy.

One thing that intrigues me is that opponents have repeatedly argued that the treaty could be renegotiated should the “no” camp prevail, this has been steadfastly denied by the yes campaigners, almost that is, until this weekend when according to EU Referendum, Jacques Delors let “Le chat out of le sac” by admitting that the EU constitution can be rewritten, if it is rejected at the 29 May referendum. But Convention leader and some say the main instigator for the whole constitution, former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing squashed that idea and ruled out rewriting when he said

“There will be no new text because it will be impossible to ask all the other countries - the majority who ratify the constitution - to forget their votes,”

To me that argument holds no water, because what the other states decide, has no relevance to the French vote, if the French do vote no, it matters not one jot that some others have voted yes, the whole thing must go back to the drawing board for renegotiation. Giscard d’Estaing may want immortality and statues himself in village squares all over Europe, as the man who produced the first Constitution for Europe, but telling obvious porkies like this will mean that those statues will have some very long noses.

British EUsceptics are divided on the issue of the French Referendum, many feel that a French no will mean that the Constitution will be shelved for the time being, but the main parts will be accomplished by inter government cooperation, thus we will not have a chance to put down a marker against our own governments involvement in the project, it is quite certain that Blair will drop the referendum at the first chance he gets, for him it’s a no brainer.

I do not belive that Blair offered us a referendum because he believes in democracy, or out of the goodness of his heart. In the early days he was absolutely set against a referendum “it was just a tiding up operation” “those who are campaigning for a referendum might as well put away their placard now because they are wasting their time” Pressure was applied to our Prime Minister, and that was the only reason he suddenly found a reverse gear. Perhaps his legal department pointed out that if he were to ratify without a referendum, as the decisions of one government cannot bind a future parliament the constitution could be challenged at a later date, this argument loses it potency if he ratifies after a referendum. Or, and I personally think much more likely, the pressure was applied by the palace, this is not as far out as some would think, the Monarchy although denuded of most of its powers, still has a residue of influence, and there were newspaper reports around the time of the change of Blair’s policy, that the palace was becoming concerned, and had asked for the papers relevant to the Constitution, since then we have heard not a dickey bird.

Even if the French do eventually accept the Constitution, three days later on June 1st the Dutch people have a chance to throw a spanner in the works, and that one is looking even dodgier for the yes men. One thing is a fairly safe bet, that is at some time one country or other is going to vote No, and then we will see, depending on which country has the honour of slaying this particular beast, how certain those claims are that there can be no renegotiation.