eurealist.co.uk

I tend to agree with the argument that the ratification exercise should continue, in the event that they decide to shelve the document, there should be an immediate halt to the anticipatory introduction of the proposals in the Constitution. It would seem to be totally undemocratic to proceed with these proposals if the treaty giving legal authority for them has been rejected. After all it is the Eulisits who do keep telling us we cannot cherry pick, but that is exactly what they will be doing by introducing these proposals.

The Constitution sets up the post of EU Foreign Minister and also to back him up with an EU diplomatic corps. Although the constitution has not yet been ratified and probably will not, this is not a concern for the proposed Foreign Minister who already revels in the title of “EU foreign policy chief” a post that does not exist.

So it is that Javier Solana “EU foreign policy chief” writes urging the bloc’s leaders to proceed with plans to create the Union’s diplomatic service despite the French rejection of the constitution. the Service could play a consular role for EU nationals and would occupy a place of its own in the EU system between the European Commission and member states. Arguing that “This service will definitely come into existence sooner or later. The more we work on a thorough preparation, the better and more successful it will be when it comes into action”. Solana says “I am convinced that the “no” vote in France is not a setback for the EU as an actor on the world stage. The EU was already an international actor, before we even started talking about the Constitution”, adding “neither the constitutional text nor the ideas contained in it are dead”.

Thus it is that the elitists intend to ignore any democratic vote rejecting the constitution, as Jean-Claude Juncker said last week “If it’s a Yes, we will say ‘on we go’, and if it’s a No we will say ‘we continue’,” .

French voters in Sunday’s referendum were hugely swayed by the fear of their sovereignty being eroded, but there were other reasons too that influenced their negation of the Constitution.

For instance, the fear of large scale immigration from the former East European countries and its inevitable impact on wages.

On this point when enlargement happened last year, only Sweden, Ireland and Britian opened their doors to immigration from the ten new states. At the time there was much fear in the press that we in Britain would be swamped by an influx of immigrants who would all be asking for us to support them with our social security payments. The government told us this would not happen and we could expect only 10,000 of these immigrants and anyway they would come to work not to sponge of the state.

Well one year on the government have been proved right and wrong, in fact according to their own figures over 175.000 immigrants have been allowed in under the new rules, vastly more that the government estimated, but on the other hand the majority have of these people have come to work, and work they have, thus adding to our economy, they have not proved to be a drain on the country as forecast.

In the other states immigration from new members was not allowed, thus instead of the reality the people are left with only the fear of it, at some time in the future. It would seem that the fear is worse than the reality, in retrospect it might have been better all round if instead of blocking immigration in order to protect their own people from the results of their decisions, the French politicians had bitten the bullet last year and allowed immigration, as it seems that the fear has now returned with a vengeance to bite them back.

Now that the French have voted against the Constitution the leaders are becoming concerned about a domino affect on other countries referendums. In Ireland the Wexford politician Avril Doyle warned “The domino effect from a major country like France saying no would impact on other countries,” and In Holland Jan Peter Balkenende issued an urgent appeal for voters not to be “influenced by the French” and to make up their own minds “Each country has its own responsibility. That means that Dutch voters have to weigh it up for themselves.” Bernard Bot the Dutch foreign minister weighed in to support Balkenende’ s eleventh hour appeal “It’s up to the French what they decide but we Dutch must make up our own minds, just as we have always done and will continue to do,”

Now call me cynical, but was it not just a few days ago when the German upper house passed the constitution it was hailed as a great step forward for Europe, and something the French should take note of when they went to the polls last Sunday, in fact it could well be argued that the Germany parliament made sure that they passed the constitution in time to affect the vote in France. Funny how when the boot is on the other foot they suddenly decide to ask their voter to ignore other votes when they have spent so much time trying to affect the votes by using their own domino affect.

I would not like anyone to think that I do not agree with Balkenende or Bot on this matter, I have always said that it is an internal matter for each country to decide for themselves, a decision that should not be influenced by other countries results or the EU institutions interference. It is good to know that they are at last coming round to my way of thinking.