Rant: Spain shows the way
22 Feb 2005 by Paul Davies
The Spaniards, those lazy Iberian layabouts, who have more reason to love the EU than just about anyone else, overwhelmingly voted Si to the Union's new constitution with almost 80% of respondents voting in favour.This might have been important, had more than 42% of the country bothered turning up, but even then, it would be struggling to seem significant.
The trouble is not that people don't care (which, presumably, they don't anyway) but that they have no idea what they're voting on.
Such is the way with grand European policies, not even the people who wrote the constitution can really claim to know what it actually says; it's been watered down a thousand times, reducing it to no more than a political totem.
The tabloid press will of course try to drum up (mainly negative) interest, spouting some nonsense about erosion of rights, transference of power to Brussels and the like. But they would be wrong. The European Union is not a United States of Europe: it is only politically cohesive when the nation states reckon they can gain from such a situation or when D'Estaing and co. fiddle with the rules while no-one is looking.
As Spain's apathy shows, passing the treaty is just a token gesture to try to re-assert some superficial sense of community now the Union has expanded in such grand style and amid plans to get even bigger. Unlike proper constitutions, like the one that gave birth to America, or Spain's 1978 constitution signifying regime change, the proposed EU constitution doesn't mark a change, it just tells us what is going on in insufferable low-grade management speak.
There are still a number of countries yet to hold referendums, with Britain and the Netherlands the most likely to say no. Poland will only validate the referendum if more than 50% of voters turn out. But with almost 450 million people completely clueless about how, if at all, the treaty will actually affect their lives and their country, it all seems a little too politically correct.
Thus, don't vote; or if you do, say yes - they'll only make us vote again if we say no. Then, hopefully, with the constitution out of the way, the European politicians can concentrate on the politest way to tell Turkey they're not really wanted.
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