eurealist.co.uk

Two of the main architects of the Constitution John Kerr and Giuliano Amato, Tony Blair the Labour spin machine Kinnock from the House of Lords, even Denis MacShane are all calling for the end of the referendum process. Arguing that the rejection of the constitution by the French and the Dutch means the Constitution is dead. Whilst on the other hand all the other EU States leaders and Commissioners are demanding the process should be continued. The Commission President Barroso was on Newsnight last night insisting that as all the 25 member state leaders had signed up to a procedure set out in Declaration 30, they should all “respect the procedure” because every member state has a right to give its opinion on the treaty.

However listening to those who want to scrap the process they are not suggesting that the proposals should also be scrapped, again last night Denis MacShane almost fell out of his chair when Paxman suggested that stopping the referendums would also mean no changes to the present treaties. Not the case at all there is still a need to bring in the changes, but this time they will not be asking the voters to give their consent, this time they will bring it in through the back door, of course MacShane did not say that in so many words but that is exactly what he meant.

It is obvious why Tony Blair wants to get himself out of a promised referendum he has little chance of winning and can only damage him politically, it is equally clear why those who put together the Constitution in the first place want to prevent any more damage to their dreams. As Giuliano Amato there may be nothing left of the constitution to rescue if ratification continues in other countries.

But what of the arguments for continuing Declaration 30 “The Conference notes that if, two years after the signature of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, four fifths of the Member States have ratified it and one or more Member States have encountered difficulties in proceeding with ratification, the matter will be referred to the European Council.” Note “If four fifths of the Member States
have ratified.” This is not the same as an obligation on them to proceed with ratification. If one Member State has said No and the others decide to respect that No, States are free to abandon the ratification process if they choose. It boils down to a decision on whether to respect the results of the referendums in France and Holland it is not up to Tony Blair to pronounce on a decision that can only be taken by the French and the Dutch leaders. If they take the view that they have asked their citizens for a mandate to ratify and that mandate has been refused, that is the end of the Constitution because it must be ratified by all 25 states. If on the other hand Chirac and Balkenende say the process should continue, they are saying they will not respect the results of the referendum, and intend to work around the no votes at a later date either by ignoring the votes and ratifying anyway or by asking the people to vote again.

Chirac has already written to the commission asking for the process to continue and Balkenende, in a press conference after the result had been announced, called for all other member states to continue with the ratification process. Thus both the French and the Dutch referendums are to be sidelined, this leaves Tony Blair as the only leader who has yet to agree to continue with the referendum. The meeting of the heads of state on 16th 17th June is going to be interesting and I suspect that we will have to wait until then to see if we in Britian are going to be allowed a voice in the process or if Blair will win the day, if he does that is still not the end, because they will be bringing in the major proposals anyway.