Some big things are afoot in Europe. It seems likely that France will vote this week to reject the EU constitution. If they do vote to reject, the constitution will not be able to be implemented, causing a serious issue for the 25-member European Union. Bloomberg's been covering this because of the potential effect on the Euro exchange rate, but other than that I haven't found much US coverage.
Predictions that a 'no' vote from France will "kill" the EU may be premature, but it's a real possibility. It all depends on whether there's a willingness to do further work on the EU constitution. Getting 25 different countries to agree on anything is really, really, hard, so going back to the drawing table could mean years of additional negotiations and voting. Not an appealing prospect.
From what I've been able to glean in the English-language press, the anti-constitution opposition feels that
the charter enshrines an "ultra-liberal" economic model, putting market interests ahead of social concerns and does not protect workers enough.
Amazing. They'll vote the EU constitution down because it doesn't protect workers enough. I'm not sure if I'm impressed or annoyed, or both, by this. I'm impressed that the people of France feel so strongly about the issue that they're willing to bring the whole EU-nification process to a halt over it. Annoyed because I think the EU is generally a good idea and that the French acting to derail the process is short-sighted of them.
And a minor side-note, note the use of the word 'liberal' as being pro-business, not pro-worker, in the Reuters UK piece. No matter what side of the Pond you live on, 'liberal' seems to be a bad word.
Comments (1)
Much of the concern about "worker protections" is really about immigration and freedom of motion, and to some degree racism.
So long as the EU was made up of western European countries with high standards of living, this was never much of an issue. With the inclusion of eastern European countries and the possibility of Turkey's joining in the future, many in western countries are beginning to question the reasonableness of a highly complex document that the believe takes away all controls over citizenship and migration from national governments and gives it over to a large bureaucracy that isn't perceived as being responsbile to anybody.
These issues might have been glossed over in a better economy. However, in the stagnant economies of central and western Europe, these immigration issues have become extremely important. They played a role in the recent British elections and are significant all across Europe. Sadly, this has not been reported much in the US.
While some people put a nice face on it, by saying it's about "worker protection," in fact, it is more about the concern that France's high unemployment could get worse as thousands of Turkish (not to mention Polish, Czech and other) workers stream in and take even more jobs away from the French.
Combine this with the reality that the 300 page document is virtually incomprehensible to anybody outside the bureaucracy, and you find a situation in which French and Dutch voters are finding themselves asked to vote for something that they don't understand, but which appears to be contrary to their specific economic interests.
That said, I don't think this means the work of the EU is done. It's possible for the EU to continue as a meaningful and powerful economic union, even without a complete political union. This would tend to derail the ideals of some former and lame-duct European leaders who hoped to create a unified Europe as a major diplomatic force in the world, but ultimately this rejection doesn't turn things back, it merely slows down the pace of change.
Posted by BelowTheCrowd | May 27, 2005 10:56 AM