Centerfield

You will find that Samizdata supports gay marriage (by virtue of not involving the state in marriage at all), opposes censorship (i.e. we have nothing agsinst pornography), opposes ID cards, thinks the 'drugs war' is moronic, constantly attacks the Tory party's stance on civil liberties, has stated that Clinton was less protectionist than Bush... so how are we a 'conservative' blog? :-)

Jon,

Thanks for the post...I've been watching this for the last week or so and figured we'd get around to it sooner or later on here.

In my understanding of French politics, there are actually a couple of reasons that the Constitution was rejected. Many have tried to tied it directly to Chirac's popularity, which is--interestingly enough--lower than his nemesis George W. Bush. Chirac is hovering somewhere in the mid to high 30's in terms of popularity. (Ironic, isn't it?) Anyway, I don't see the rejection as a reflection of that popularity, I see his sagging popularity to be a result of his attempts to take slight steps away from the socialist state France had become under Mitterrand. (sp?) Most Americans probably have no clue that Chirac is a rightist. His attempts to break some of the power that unions hold in that country have been extremely unpopular. The French are very wary of the EU Constitution and many see it as a "Capitalist" swing in the direction of the US. They just don't want to give up their social programs--something they see as inevitable if the EU takes shape as currently intended.

This is all IMHO, of course.

Whoops, Perry. You're right - you're a libertarian
blog. Sorry!.

I agree. The failure of the E.U. Constitution in France had more to do with Chirac's personal popularity (or lack thereof) than with French opinion on Europe. This is common in referenda. In 1993, Canada rejected constitutional reform more because then-Prime Minster Mulroney (also a center-rightist) supported it than because of any real objection to the proposals.

To me, this is cause for both (muted) celebration and (heightened) worry. After all, whatever the proposed document's failings, opposition to it came from the extrems of French society: communists and fascists, Popular Front and National Front. There may be problems with social and political union run by an undemocratic technocracy in Brussels, but Europe still makes sense as some sort of supranational union of member-states.

I don't think this was such a huge blow to Europe, however. The French elites are vehemently for Europe, and, in general, they run the country. I suspect that the cause of union has suffered a serious setback, but one which could allow pro-Europeans to think more clearly about what kind of union is feasible and what kind of constitution makes sense.

For more of my take, see here:

http://the-reaction.blogspot.com/2005/05/leurope-cest-moi.html

It seems to me that the problem was that they failed, utterly, to write a constitution. The document they proposed wasn't a constitution in any sense in whihc I'd recognize is, because it attempted to inelegantly micromanage any number of aspects of the future union. The great beauty of the US constitution is how elegantly simple it is, in how much it leaves out as irrelevant to its purpose, which is to establish only the framework.

For a pertinent example, the US constitution says that there will be a Senate, and it will advise and consent on Presidential appointments. The document doesn't go into detail about how the Senate will do this, it leaves that responsibility to the Senators of the future. Those who wrote the EU constitution seem ignorant of what a constitution should do.

This is only a victory if they now go back, shred the old document, and instead of trying to write out how the government will operate, day-to-day, they learn to trust the people, and instead think about the large-scale architecture of the kind of EU government they want.

Yeah, from what very little I've read, this constitution sounds a lot more like a product of modern special interest politics than a visionary description of guiding principles.

I think it's a hard sell to individuals that this document is in their own self-interest. People fear losing sovereignty and national entitlements. Generally people have to be convinced of broad utility to vote yes on such things, whether it be a constitution or a local referendum.

"I'm not sure" and "I don't get it" tend to lead to a NO vote unless the status quo is perceived as fairly undesirable."What are we changing from?" plays a big role. Passing the US and French constitutions, for example, was a declaration of independence from past oppression, as the Iraqi constitution will hopefully be. That's a very different dynamic from choosing to join a much bigger bureaucracy...there's a solid amount of sentiment in such instances that joining the bigger bureaucracy may be MORE oppressive than the status quo. I'm sympathetic to that notion.

Mark Steyn in the Daily Telegraph:

President Juncker distilled the great flaw at the heart of the EU constitution into one straightforward sentence that cut through all the thickets of Giscard's unreadable verbiage. The American constitution begins with the words "We the people". The starting point for the EU constitution is: "We know better than the people."

As far as Europe has come, we are still dealing with a continent that has in places, Kings and Queens, and Dukes and Lords and Ladies.

Imagine my surprise at their aristocratic tendencies...

I guess it also seems to me as if these individual countries with long, storied histories are being asked to blend their cultures - - their governments - - in with their neighbors, some of whom have been enemies, or at least suspicious of each other, for centuries. It worked in the US because we were a new country. I just don't see it working with "member states" who have had centuries of independence.

Oh, I can see the possibility of a constitution going forward. It'll go forward if and only if it's a positive change from status quo, though. Note Texas joined the US despite storied (if short) history, and it definitely continues to have a real identity. Nor do I accept the idea that they're all aristocrats. One reason this treaty got the boot is because many DON'T like their new aristocrats.

I think political unification could help Europe because democratic polities above a certain size seem more stable. Democratic Athens went crazy and attacked fellow democracy and almost equal superpower Syracuse. Democratic Lichtenstein voted to revert to monarchy (!). France had its infamous 35-hour experiment. We have plenty of states with dumb ideas, but the other 49 and the Feds keep particular dumb ideas from getting out of hand.

They just need to not give this kind of assignment to the B-team. There are many capable Europeans, including some who've been in on constitution-writing parties before. The EU needs to give the job to them!

It'd help if they reformed some of the less democratic things about the EU (e.g., make it truly bicameral, have citizens elect their Commissioners). I could go on for hours on the bad effects that Commission structure and abilities have on the EU. Oh, and add a freely elected leader, not a figure of oligopoly.

I equate the current EU constitution and thoughts of the EU in general toward the US Articles of Confederation, except, of course, in the opposite direction. They'll try it, it'll fail, they'll come back towards something more in the middle, not unlike the Founding Fathers.

Imagine that; centrism in the constitution. Who'd a thunk it?