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EU Referendum

Going Dutch on the European Constitution

By Damien McGuinness in Berlin

With typical Gallic coquetry, France has got everyone wondering, will she or won't she. But it now looks like the Dutch may dig their clogs in too. Even if the EU constitution gets the go-ahead in Sunday's French referendum, things aren't looking good for its chances over in the Netherlands three days later.

There are some nations from which you expect a certain awkwardness when it comes to European Unioin matters. With diva-like deliberation, France enjoys keeping the rest of the continent on its toes, as was proven in 1992, when the Maastricht treaty scraped by with a blasé 51.05 percent support in the French referendum. And as for Barely-in-Europe Britain, in view of the tepid reception all things euro get in the UK, it is hard to imagine why Blair committed himself to a people's vote in the first place.

But Holland? Surely this mainstay of the European Union, where support for the EU is generally widespread, and which helped set up the thing in the first place, can be counted on to endorse the constitution? If it was up to the country's political leaders, it could. But on June 1 the Netherlands is holding a referendum, the result of which could well be a resounding No.

According to the pollster Maurice de Hond, 60 percent of those voters who had already made up their minds were planning to vote no, with only 40 percent willing to endorse the document. Other surveys indicate an even more extreme rejection of the treaty. And this, despite the fact that 80 to 90 percent of parliamentary representatives, and all of the mainstream parties, support the constitution.

So what's happened to turn the Dutch off Europe? According to many analysts it's not so much EU government that people have a problem with. It's their own. And there are even suspicions that the more politicians do to persuade voters, the less likely the Dutch are to actually vote yes.

Politicians are living in Nether-nether-land

"There are lots of intelligent and well-educated people here, who have benefited from being able to travel and work within Europe and view the EU as a magnificent institution, but are still going to vote no in the referendum," says Professor Andre Krouwel, specialist in EU politics at the Free University in Amsterdam. He believes that the referendum campaign has been completely mismanaged, with the constitution itself being seen as the pet project of an unpopular political elite, which is far removed from the people's real concerns. "They have given all the ammunition to populist opinion both on the left and the right and they are standing in the middle, looking ridiculous, being shot at from both sides," he says. "And the more they discuss, the more ridiculous they look. The whole thing has been a PR disaster."

Even the government's latest ad campaign equating a No vote as support for war -- an overly pedantic reference to the EU's having risen out of the rubble of World War II -- has been criticized as not only fallacious, but also salacious.

With only 19 percent in the approval ratings, the government didn't exactly have a strong position to begin with, but attacks over the constitution from both the left and the right has weakened it still further. Extreme left-wingers cry that the constitution would let in rampant Anglo-Saxon neo-liberalism and kill off the comprehensive welfare state.

Right-wing nationalists on the other hand warn that a yes vote would open the flood-gates to hordes of immigrants, Islamic extremism via a Turkish entry and a general loss of national sovereignty -- arguments which certainly strike a chord, just seven months after film-maker Theo van Gogh was killed, allegedly by Islamic extremists.

Not that any of these scare tactics have all that much to do with reality. But they are nevertheless real worries the population has. There is also grumbling to be heard that the bigger countries are allowed to get away with more than the smaller ones. A particular gripe in Holland, for example, is France and Germany's flouting of the budget-deficit limits in the euro area.

Add to that, the perceived increased cost of living since the introduction of the euro, the country's current economic problems and the widely held belief that Holland is paying more into European coffers than it should given its small size, and you have a range of concerns which, if not addressed by government, can be easily exploited by the political fringes. Which is, in fact, exactly what has happened.

Just how democratic is direct democracy?

According to Professor Krouwel this is one of the problems endemic in putting a vote to the people. "Referenda mobilize highly motivated minorities. The moderate middle ground doesn't bother to vote." He not only doubts the democratic validity of the vote -- this is the first time a referendum has ever been held in the modern Dutch state and there is no provision for it in the constitution -- but also views the whole exercise as a manipulating tactic on behalf of the government which has back-fired badly.

"The referendum is not binding and is only consultative," Krouwel says. "Although the government has said that it will respect the result (if turn-out is over 30 percent) it can be ignored. As a purist, I have huge problems with the referendum. It seems to me to be an arbitrary way for parties to make up their own democratic institutions."

But arbitrary or not, referenda are being held in many member countries as a means of ratifying the constitution, which, among other things, aims to provide for EU regulations to be passed through majority voting rather than through the current consensus system, allow for an EU president and increase collective action in certain areas.

But instead of looking at the merits surrounding the proposed document, the referenda are being used to express dissatisfaction with national governments. That at least is the way things are looking in France right now -- which holds its referendum on Sunday -- where voters threaten to use the referendum as a poke in the eye for an unpopular Chirac administration, which has thrown itself whole-heartedly into the Yes camp. Although it is close, polls indicate that 55 percent may vote no.

Agincourt all over again

Similar to the Dutch campaign, French extremists also cite Anglo-Saxon imperialism on the one hand, and loss of national sovereignty on the other, as reason to say no. The French campaign has however been attracting more nail-biting attention because if France votes no, Holland could follow suit. A Gallic knock-back would also have greater symbolic value given the size of France and its status as one of the driving forces of European unification. Unlike the Dutch vote, a French no would also be binding.

What a rejection of the constitution would mean for the European Union is as yet unclear. This in itself is possibly a deliberate attempt on behalf of politicians to make an endorsement appear to voters as the only valid possibility. In fact both French and Dutch politicians are making it sound as if European civilization would fall apart if the constitution were not recognized. Clearly this would not happen. The EU institutions are there now, and they would be still there without a constitution. But it certainly puts the brakes on further integration for a while.