The Naysayers of Europe

By J.F.O. McAllister

The no was stunningly clear: 55% of those who voted in France and 62% in the Netherlands rejected the European constitution. That effectively dooms the 448-article document, hammered out in more than two years of laborious negotiations to establish how Europe would be run, create the offices of Foreign Minister and European President and in general foster a greater sense of allegiance to the union. The E.U. is still a going concern, yet its legitimacy has been called into question. "It's a fundamental revolution," says Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform in London. "Nothing has changed, but everything has changed." Where does Europe go from here?

In the short run, to a meeting. E.U. heads of government will confer next week in Brussels, where they will probably pronounce the constitution (which must be approved by all 25 member nations in order to take effect) comatose, if not dead. They might try to repackage a few of its less controversial changes in a form that can be approved by parliaments rather than popular vote, given that parliaments thus far have backed the constitution. But such a move might look provocatively undemocratic-perhaps not the best strategy after a vote that was seen as a rejection of the ruling elites.

But it will take much longer for Europe to digest the full meaning of the rejection. "No" voters didn't have much in common: French socialists feared the constitution would hasten the advent of "Anglo-Saxon" free markets; Dutch conservatives were angry about immigration and their lopsided contribution to the E.U. budget. Voters of all stripes just wanted to give their unpopular governments a kicking. Their main gripes include persistent high unemployment and low growth in much of Europe. That stagnation fuels a fear of the future, of which the E.U. has become a major symbol.

It's a symbol of another kind for the former Soviet-bloc countries, which undertook painful reforms as the price of their admission last year. If the E.U. can't even agree on its own constitution, that may hurt pro-Western forces in countries still wanting to join, like Turkey and Ukraine. The resulting instability could hurt American interests too. --By J.F.O. McAllister