Monday, May 30, 2005
Why Europe is Burning?
My brain is still digesting the effects of the "Non" vote in France. To be honest it is not a surprize, nor will the "Nee" in the Netherlands next week. Quite simply, the constitution does not reflect what the european citizenry want, and therefore it was rejected. I suspect that what will happen is that Europe will become a parlementary system like here, with the Commision being responsible to the parlament. This means that the commision is the executive of Europe but it can be removed by the parlament. This function sort of exists, but I suspect that europe will see a more gradual evolution of power and the parlament's democratic controls will become more significant.
Jax
The massive defeat of the new European Constitution by the French in today's referendum means a virtual political revolution in France -- a rebellion by the people against the political elites of both left and right. . .
Despite an overwhelming campaign for a Yes vote by the mainstream French media (including a major pro-Yes bias in TV coverage), and by nearly all the major political leaders of left, right, and center -- a scare campaign that tried to (falsely) tell the French that they would be responsible for destroying construction of a united Europe if they voted against this constitution -- the French electorate's working and middle classes, by their No vote, rejected the unregulated free-market policies aimed at destroying the welfare state and the social safety net, embodied in the Constitution.
Today's vote confirms the enormous gap between what the French call "La France d'en haut et la France d'en bas" -- the France of above and the France of below. And this rejection of France's political elites will bring extraordinary changes to the country's political landscape:
President Jacques Chirac, who called for this referendum (rather than letting parliament alone ratify it), has taken a slap in the face from which he cannot recover before the presidential elections of 2007. It will now be impossible for Chirac to seek a third presidential term -- and he won't run again. . .
Today's vote means that the presidential candidate of the right in two years will be, not Chirac, but Nicolas Sarkozy, the ambitious chairman of the conservative UMP party. In a televised declaration broadcast just after the exit poll results were announced that had the accents of a presidential campaign speech, Sarkozy said that there must now be a "rupture" with the French economic and social model -- which means a break with the mixed economy and more ultra-conservative economic and social policies than Chirac has been willing to adopt. . .
The political revolution flowing from today's vote encompasses the French left. The Socialist Party's top leaders -- including its chief, Francois Hollande, and former Mitterand Culture Minister Jacques Lang (the most popular left pol in the opinion polls, thanks to his incessant TV appearances -- see photo at right) both campaigned for a Yes vote. But the Socialist electorate, the exit polls showed, voted hugely for the No by 56-44%. Even though not-terribly-charismatic Hollande has control of the Socialist Party apparatus (at least for the moment), it will now be very difficult for him to be his party's standard-bearer. . .
The Socialist Party's left wing, led by member of parliament Henri Emmanuelli and Senator Jean-Luc Melanchon -- who campaigned hard for the No against the wishes of their party's executive committee -- finds itself reinforced by today's vote. But neither Emmanueli nor Melanchon have the "heft" of a presidential candidate.
Their ally in the campaign for the No vote -- a former Socialist Prime Minister under Francois Mitterand, Laurent Fabius, who was the target of constant barbs from Hollande and the Socialist leadership during the referendum campaign for breaking party "unity" -- is also reinforced. But Fabius is best remembered in France as the prime minister who carried out Mitterand's break with socialist economics to embrace a free-market program of austerity and privatization in 1982 - and it is precisely that sort of economics which, the exit polls show, French voters (and particularly the left electorate) have rejected today. Fabius' campaign for the No was widely perceived as political opportunism designed to enhance his presidential ambitions -- and, while he has the "stature" of a possible president, it's hard to see him eliciting much enthusiasm from "La France d'en bas" and the traditional left electorate.
Today's vote also is a victory for what is known as "the left of the left" -- there was a united and coordinated campaign for the No vote by the Trotskyist LCR (Revolutionary Communist League), and its popular, media-charismatic spokesman Olivier Besancenot, a young postman who was the party's presidential candidate in 2002; by the smaller Trotskyist group Lutte Ouvriere (Workers' Struggle), led by its perennial presidential candidate Arlette Laguiller; by the French Communist Party, led by its general secretary, Marie-Georges Buffet, a former Minister of Sports and Youth in a coalition government with the Socialists; and by the large "associative left" of extra-party social movements and groups, like the anti-globalization ATTAC, and the leader of the Confederation paysanne, the popular Jose Bove, who is appreciated by left militants of all stripes. Even a significant segment of gay and lesbian leadership issued a gay manifesto for the No, arguing the Constitution would be bad for LGBT people. . .
Finally, today's vote in France is a good thing for those who oppose the American imperium. Under the Constitution -- which sets in concrete a united Europe's subordination in military and security policy to NATO -- it would take a unanimous vote by every single one of the European Union's 25 countries to adopt a foreign policy position similar to the Franco-German opposition to Bush's war in Iraq. Moreover, any EU country that is a member of the UN Security Council (like France -- or, as in a proposed future enlargement of the Security Council, Germany) would be hobbled in its ability to take an anti-Washington position without consensus approval by all the EU countries as represented in the (un-elected) EU Commission headquartered in Brussels. (Link)
Jax
The massive defeat of the new European Constitution by the French in today's referendum means a virtual political revolution in France -- a rebellion by the people against the political elites of both left and right. . .
Despite an overwhelming campaign for a Yes vote by the mainstream French media (including a major pro-Yes bias in TV coverage), and by nearly all the major political leaders of left, right, and center -- a scare campaign that tried to (falsely) tell the French that they would be responsible for destroying construction of a united Europe if they voted against this constitution -- the French electorate's working and middle classes, by their No vote, rejected the unregulated free-market policies aimed at destroying the welfare state and the social safety net, embodied in the Constitution.
Today's vote confirms the enormous gap between what the French call "La France d'en haut et la France d'en bas" -- the France of above and the France of below. And this rejection of France's political elites will bring extraordinary changes to the country's political landscape:
President Jacques Chirac, who called for this referendum (rather than letting parliament alone ratify it), has taken a slap in the face from which he cannot recover before the presidential elections of 2007. It will now be impossible for Chirac to seek a third presidential term -- and he won't run again. . .
Today's vote means that the presidential candidate of the right in two years will be, not Chirac, but Nicolas Sarkozy, the ambitious chairman of the conservative UMP party. In a televised declaration broadcast just after the exit poll results were announced that had the accents of a presidential campaign speech, Sarkozy said that there must now be a "rupture" with the French economic and social model -- which means a break with the mixed economy and more ultra-conservative economic and social policies than Chirac has been willing to adopt. . .
The political revolution flowing from today's vote encompasses the French left. The Socialist Party's top leaders -- including its chief, Francois Hollande, and former Mitterand Culture Minister Jacques Lang (the most popular left pol in the opinion polls, thanks to his incessant TV appearances -- see photo at right) both campaigned for a Yes vote. But the Socialist electorate, the exit polls showed, voted hugely for the No by 56-44%. Even though not-terribly-charismatic Hollande has control of the Socialist Party apparatus (at least for the moment), it will now be very difficult for him to be his party's standard-bearer. . .
The Socialist Party's left wing, led by member of parliament Henri Emmanuelli and Senator Jean-Luc Melanchon -- who campaigned hard for the No against the wishes of their party's executive committee -- finds itself reinforced by today's vote. But neither Emmanueli nor Melanchon have the "heft" of a presidential candidate.
Their ally in the campaign for the No vote -- a former Socialist Prime Minister under Francois Mitterand, Laurent Fabius, who was the target of constant barbs from Hollande and the Socialist leadership during the referendum campaign for breaking party "unity" -- is also reinforced. But Fabius is best remembered in France as the prime minister who carried out Mitterand's break with socialist economics to embrace a free-market program of austerity and privatization in 1982 - and it is precisely that sort of economics which, the exit polls show, French voters (and particularly the left electorate) have rejected today. Fabius' campaign for the No was widely perceived as political opportunism designed to enhance his presidential ambitions -- and, while he has the "stature" of a possible president, it's hard to see him eliciting much enthusiasm from "La France d'en bas" and the traditional left electorate.
Today's vote also is a victory for what is known as "the left of the left" -- there was a united and coordinated campaign for the No vote by the Trotskyist LCR (Revolutionary Communist League), and its popular, media-charismatic spokesman Olivier Besancenot, a young postman who was the party's presidential candidate in 2002; by the smaller Trotskyist group Lutte Ouvriere (Workers' Struggle), led by its perennial presidential candidate Arlette Laguiller; by the French Communist Party, led by its general secretary, Marie-Georges Buffet, a former Minister of Sports and Youth in a coalition government with the Socialists; and by the large "associative left" of extra-party social movements and groups, like the anti-globalization ATTAC, and the leader of the Confederation paysanne, the popular Jose Bove, who is appreciated by left militants of all stripes. Even a significant segment of gay and lesbian leadership issued a gay manifesto for the No, arguing the Constitution would be bad for LGBT people. . .
Finally, today's vote in France is a good thing for those who oppose the American imperium. Under the Constitution -- which sets in concrete a united Europe's subordination in military and security policy to NATO -- it would take a unanimous vote by every single one of the European Union's 25 countries to adopt a foreign policy position similar to the Franco-German opposition to Bush's war in Iraq. Moreover, any EU country that is a member of the UN Security Council (like France -- or, as in a proposed future enlargement of the Security Council, Germany) would be hobbled in its ability to take an anti-Washington position without consensus approval by all the EU countries as represented in the (un-elected) EU Commission headquartered in Brussels. (Link)
