Captain Ed posted today about the upcoming referendum on the EU constitution that will be held in France on Sunday. It looks like it will be a strong
non. As a German-American living in Europe, this is not really troubling, but perhaps I can shed some light on it.
A substantial number of Frenchies have actually read the constitution. It's 265 pages of garble that is virtually impossible to understand. The conservatives hate it because it will let Turkey in. What's the big deal, really? France has a very high Moslem population. They don't need Turkey to turn Europe Moslem. The socialists are against it because it would force a free economy. It seems that both sides will shoot it down.
George Irvin, a research fellow at the
International Centre for Economic Research in Turin, Italy, wrote
an opinion piece for the
EU Observer in which he opines that it is a matter of economics:
Economists may agree the Eurozone’s record has been dire, but they disagree about why. The orthodox explanation, popular amongst many US-trained economists and often echoed by the OECD, is that Europe suffers from bloated budgets, inflexible labour markets and high taxes. Remove the welfare state everyone will get back to work. The alternative explanation, favoured by post-Keynesians, is that the balanced budget corset imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) is paralysing the Eurozone.
In contrast to Britain and the US where growth is fuelled by rising asset prices, private debt and public spending, in Germany, France and Italy, both government and household savings have risen over the past decade. Public and private frugality not only depresses aggregate demand, but under conditions of very low inflation it leads to ‘deflationary expectations’; ie, the darker the economic climate, the more one must save for a rainy day. In short, the Eurozone suffers from deficient aggregate demand. A devalued dollar, enabling the US to postpone its adjustment, makes European prospects even bleaker.
The article is thoughtful. Go ahead and read all of it. It presents the economic arguments against the EU constitution even while Irvin himself thinks a defeat of the constitution would be a disaster. Additionally, it seems that Irvin aligns himself with the infamous NYT economist, Paul Krugman, if the links on his site are to be believed. However, what he says in this article seems to make sense - at least as to why the left isn't supporting the constitution.
There are more
opinion pieces on the EU Observer website from people on different sides of the political spectrum.
A visit may be enlightening.
No matter whether you consider the EU constitution worth adopting or not, I don't think there's a chance that the constitution will be approved by the French electorate. Which leaves Chirac with a quandry: either he ignores the vote (which isn't unthinkable) and calls for a revote or simply approves it like many other countries, without another referendum, or they'll need to rewrite the whole thing. I think they could do worse than condensing it down to maybe 20 very consise and readable pages.
From what I've heard, the Netherlands will reject it, as will the UK. Since all countries must accept it for it to be valid, I think you'll see the whole thing implode or stop being a democracy. The latter is more likely than the former. But let's wait and see.
