Can the constitution be saved?

Apr 18th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda

With French voters looking increasingly likely to reject Europe's new constitution in a referendum on May 29th, President Jacques Chirac has thrown his weight behind the yes campaign. Has he left it too late? And is the document dead if the French say no?

FRANCE was one of the founder members of the European Union. It is half of the “Franco-German” motor that has historically driven European integration. The administrative culture of Brussels is heavily French-influenced, and the EU’s biggest single chunk of spending, the common agricultural policy, is a huge gift to France. Jacques Delors, the most successful of all presidents of the European Commission, was a Frenchman. So was the president of the convention that wrote the EU’s draft constitutional treaty, finalised last year.

So why are more than half of French voters telling pollsters they will vote no on that constitution, in a referendum on May 29th? A recent average of polls has 53% of voters ready to reject the document. Unlike some EU members, France was not required by its own constitution to hold a referendum on the EU-wide one. Yet in July last year, President Jacques Chirac announced a referendum anyway, confident that it was winnable. Now France's governing elite is in a panic, and Mr Chirac is belatedly throwing his weight fully into the campaign. In 1992, President François Mitterrand tried the same gamble with Europe’s Maastricht treaty—and nearly lost, the yes camp winning just 51% in the end. Mr Chirac is desperate not to do worse.

One reason for the surprising strength of the no camp may be the confusion over just what the constitution is about. The official French position, backed by Mr Chirac, is that the constitution bolsters France’s place in Europe, and the French ideal of Europe. The constitution, after all, will strengthen European foreign policy, long a French goal, by creating an EU foreign minister. It includes a charter of fundamental rights, some of which are typically French rights regarding employment and welfare. Like every other national leader, Mr Chirac returned from the constitutional negotiations declaring victory for his country. And François Hollande, who as head of the opposition Socialists should be Mr Chirac’s main ideological rival, supports the constitution as well.

But opposition is coming from Mr Chirac’s right, and Mr Hollande’s left. On the right, a confusing issue has been Turkey. Many in France are opposed to Turkish membership of the EU, and there is a false impression that the constitution leads inevitably to this. Not only is the far right, symbolised by Jean-Marie Le Pen, a xenophobic crank, opposed to Turkey’s joining. Mr Chirac’s own party, the Union for a Popular Majority, is against as well, despite the president’s own support.

Meanwhile, Mr Hollande’s Socialists are even more divided. Predictably, left-wing elements say that the constitution does not go far enough in creating political union and “social Europe”. They have been given a respectable face in Laurent Fabius, a former prime minister, who has come out against the treaty. As on the right, there is confusion over the constitution's implications.

The French left, in particular, opposes a European Commission directive that would liberalise trade in services across Europe. This has nothing to do with the constitution, and Mr Chirac anyway successfully blocked progress on passing the directive at the last summit of EU leaders. But the impression that the constitution entrenches “Anglo-Saxon” liberal market policies has lingered.

That said, the French left does have a legitimate point or two. The constitution contains several victories for Britain, so often France’s arch-rival in Europe. Among other things, it maintains each country’s veto on big foreign-policy decisions and on tax harmonisation.

Can Mr Chirac turn it around? With about a third of voters still undecided, he may yet succeed. On Thursday April 14th, the president tried to jump-start the yes campaign by holding a televised chat with a group of young people to discuss the constitution’s merits. The changes are needed, he said, to keep the EU “strong” and “organised”; more ominously, he predicted that France might “cease to exist politically” in the Union if it rejected the constitution. This sales pitch did not have the desired effect: polls conducted on Friday and the weekend showed opposition to the constitution rising, not falling.

The left may not want to hand the likes of Mr Le Pen a victory, but neither do they particularly want to help Mr Chirac; they have already been forced to rally to him when Mr Le Pen shockingly reached the second round of the presidential race in 2002. Moreover, there are signs that Mr Chirac is a busted flush: only one in three French trust him, according to polls. Referendums are often used across Europe to give unpopular governments a kicking.

A French yes, necessary but not sufficient

The common wisdom is that if France votes no, the constitution is dead. But a rejection on May 29th would probably not be the end of the process. Officials in Brussels say that other national referendums on the constitution should go forward regardless of the outcome in France. This is because if the French vote no and the approval process grinds to a halt, European leaders would be tempted to tinker with the constitution to get French approval. But this would tempt referendum voters in other countries then to imitate the French, forcing the process to repeat over and over.

The Netherlands is scheduled to vote just a few days after France, on June 1st. Though the Dutch are usually enthusiastic Europeans, they have been in a grumpy mood lately over the failure of France and Germany to observe budget-deficit limits required for members of the euro area. If the Dutch vote no after a French rejection, the treaty in its current form would almost certainly be dead. The Dutch may not even hold their referendum if the French say no.

But even if France and the Netherlands vote yes, further hurdles await the treaty. Poland, whose voters have soured on EU membership, will also hold a referendum. And Britain, historically the most Eurosceptical member of them all, is due to hold a vote in 2006. Were the French to vote no, however, the British, like the Dutch, might ditch their referendum. Tony Blair, the British prime minister, suggested as much for the first time on Monday, saying: “You can't have a vote on nothing.” And if the French vote yes to the treaty? That might only exacerbate Britons' fears of a socialist takeover of Europe, encouraging them to reject it.

Officials insist there is no “plan B”, hoping not to give sceptical voters an attractive alternative. But unofficially, there has been talk about the possibilities. One might be to keep the treaty’s “constitutional” sections, including the charter of fundamental rights, as well as the changes in the EU’s voting system and the Union's institutions, while cutting the section dealing with the EU’s policies in detail. These could be renegotiated later and appended to previous treaties (which the current constitution is meant to replace in full). But this would be a lengthy and difficult process. After painfully sealing the compromises in the present draft, EU leaders will be loath to reopen them.

The members of the constitutional convention, after some debate, omitted any reference to God in the preamble. They might now be regretting that decision, as it looks like the constitution may need a miracle.

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