It is noteworthy that on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Austrian State Treaty (the document that returned Austria's independence after the Hitlerite Anschluss of 1939), only one deputy of the Vienna Bundestag demonstratively voted against the ratification of the EU Constitution. And even then, he was clearly motivated not so much by considerations of state benefit as by the desire to stand out from his colleagues. The ratification in the German Bundestag was similar - albeit not unanimously, but with the necessary two-thirds majority, German deputies also voted "in favor".
So far, the only country to have approved the EU Constitution in a referendum is Spain - where about 81% of voters approved the EU's founding law. On May 29, the same procedure will be held in France, and it is here, in the founding country of the European Union, that serious problems have suddenly arisen. According to public opinion polls, 55% of French people are opposed to the Constitution - a document that was, incidentally, drafted under the direct leadership of former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
However, traditional national pride hardly plays any role in this case: the French are simply afraid. They fear Turkey's entry into the EU, they fear unemployment and lower wages due to an influx of cheap labor from the East, they fear the faceless Brussels bureaucratic machine that is gaining increasing influence within the EU. Even French farmers, who receive the largest financial subsidies from the European coffers in the Community, are opposed to adopting the EU Constitution - 60% of the rural population intends to vote against the referendum. "For them, 'yes' means a worsening of their situation, while 'no' at least preserves the status quo," explains the head of the French sociological service Ipsos, Jean-Marc Lech.
President Jacques Chirac, one of the most ardent defenders of the EU Constitution, is naturally displeased with this state of affairs, and he is bringing up heavy artillery. At the invitation of the French government, no fewer than 800 of the most prominent politicians, public figures, and artists came to the Élysée Palace to convince, as the famous German writer, Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass, put it, "dear French friends not to hide behind the backs of right- or left-wing nationalists." Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski wrote a passionate appeal to "the nation that gave Europe the ideals of freedom, equality, and fraternity," and the German Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor came to Paris in person to take part in a kind of "advertising campaign for Europe."
Such a massive offensive on all fronts seems to be yielding results - the number of supporters of the EU Constitution in France has increased, but the positive outcome of the referendum remains in question. But if the French vote against, then the EU's founding law will not be worth even the paper it is printed on.
Such thoughts inspire fear not so much in the French president himself. As the newspaper Le Figaro reported, Chirac already has a "Plan B" ready in case the referendum fails: the French "no" to the EU Constitution will not mean his downfall - the "old chameleon," as the newspaper calls him, is ready to instantly transform from a fervent globalist into an equally fervent champion of national interests. However, Brussels officials have no such plan by definition. Therefore, despondency is slowly spreading in the capital of the EU. "Bigger, broader, more important" - with these pompous goals, Europe was forced to say goodbye a year after the eastward enlargement: the associated problems turned out to be too serious, not only economic but also, above all, political.
The French "no" to the EU Constitution could be one of the decisive nails in the coffin of the European idea. Taxpayers in Western Europe are no longer inspired by the thought of having a common foreign minister. They are much more interested in the billions of euros flowing out of their pockets to the East, and following those billions, along with factories and plants migrating to Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, their jobs also disappear. The political elites of Western European states are also slowly beginning to realize what experiment they have been drawn into. Vice-Speaker of the European Parliament, former French Minister for Europe Pierre Moscovici, states: "The decline in popularity of the European idea among Europeans is directly linked to the eastward enlargement. We all made a bunch of mistakes."
However, even if the referendum in France ratifies the European Constitution, there are still many obstacles ahead, each of which could be the last, insurmountable one. In the Czech Republic, none other than the country's former president, Václav Havel, has become an opponent of the EU's founding law. In the United Kingdom, Eurosceptics from the Liberal Party have for the first time gained enough seats in the House of Commons to actively influence the legislation of the United Kingdom, and the famous British "yellow press," which is skilled at sensing which way the wind blows, was the first to catch the new trends. Now it periodically entertains its readers with chilling stories that the EU Constitution will ban choral singing in stadiums during football matches, and also that €10 banknotes are the cause of impotence.
After France, the next referendum will be in the Netherlands (June 1) - and here, in the co-founding country of the European Economic Community, the outcome of the vote is just as uncertain as it is for the French. Paradoxically, opponents of the EU Constitution, if they win, could achieve the exact opposite of their aspirations: the 25,000-strong army of Brussels Eurocrats will get even more power. As the German magazine Focus writes, one high-ranking official even stated: "After all, there is a difference between my deciding from my Brussels office the fate of a continent from Estonia to Portugal, and my being an employee of an insignificant secretariat to which the Constitution turns the European Commission."