Where is my country going ?

[LittleGrizzly]

long time no see louis... shame it failed

[bmolsson]

Can't really understand why France have a referendum at all. With this in mind we should create a large Baltikum instead......

[Spetulhu]

What's so wrong about saying no to a text you can't comprehend? I've always been careful not to sign any contracts that aren't perfectly clear.

[JAG]

What's so wrong about saying no

Everything.

Already the British foreign secretary has shamelessly hinted that it is a time to see what we 'really want' the EU to be, social or economic.. We are starting now to see completely the end of the social EU vision so many rights granted in the past could be in jeopardy because of this no vote. :(

[Don Corleone]

Hey guys, finding myself with a little time on my hands here in Singapore and decided to pop in. Hope all has been well during my trek through China.

I saw this on the news this morning, and that's actually why I popped in here, I wanted to talk about the vote with some folks who know more than I.

Jag, Spetulhu made a great point. You're asking people to surrender their sovereignty, their identity and their decision making to a group of beauracrats they don't get to elect. You yourself said earlier it's so damn convoluted, it's hard to know what exactly is in that Constitution. I was surprised it was France that put the breaks on, as it stood to benefit the most, but I'm also glad somebody did.

I'm not saying a Unified Europe is a bad idea. I think it's a good idea. But don't you think on something so important as the power of life and death over the citizens, the citizens have a right to know what they're signing up to? With all the time the EU Constitutional Committee has been at it, they should have taken the time to put the rights and restrictions into plain language everyone could understand.

By the way, for as ardent as a socialist as you are, Jag, I'm surprised to see you so much in favor of it. I thought the EU crowd were in favor of liberalizing Europe's economies, and I thought that was one of the main knocks against it in France, that social welfare would be curtailed in the name of economic competitiveness.

Anybody who thinks the current social welfare system as it exists in the USA or Europe can continue needs to get on a plane and come visit China. There's a billion people over here, many educated, all desparate to advance their country's economy. They don't care about social welfare provisions, and frequently work 70+ hours a week. There's no job they cannot do. At the end of the day, if the West does not liberalize it's economies, we're going to find ourselves being the 3rd world countries.

So, I guess in conclusion, I say bravo France for injecting some reasonable pause into the discussion, but get right back to the bigger matter at hand... clarify the rights and restrictions and move on.

[PanzerJaeger]

Hey Don, hope youre not smuggling any drugs.

[doc_bean]

[QUOTE=Don Corleone]I'm not saying a Unified Europe is a bad idea. I think it's a good idea. But don't you think on something so important as the power of life and death over the citizens, the citizens have a right to know what they're signing up to? With all the time the EU Constitutional Committee has been at it, they should have taken the time to put the rights and restrictions into plain language everyone could understand.
[\QUOTE]

The power over life and death of its citizens ? When did we surrender that ?
The justice systems are still nation based. ButI agree with your other point and I've said it before, the constitution was wriiten for lawyers and politicians, not ordinary people, that was really its one big problem.

Anybody who thinks the current social welfare system as it exists in the USA or Europe can continue needs to get on a plane and come visit China. There's a billion people over here, many educated, all desparate to advance their country's economy. They don't care about social welfare provisions, and frequently work 70+ hours a week. There's no job they cannot do. At the end of the day, if the West does not liberalize it's economies, we're going to find ourselves being the 3rd world countries.

Or the people of China can get fed up with working so hard and start demanding worker rights. After all, isn't communism supposed to be about worker rights ?

[Don Corleone]

A rose, by any other name, eh Doc Bean? The Chinese are about as communist as Warren Buffet. In terms of them threatening to quit/strike.... what have you...even with all of the prosperity and growth they've seen, in many, many ways, China is still a very poor country. One of the ways this shows up immediately is the 15% unemployment. Go ahead and tell your boss you're knocking off at 40 hours this week. Come Monday, there's 3 guys ready to take your place.

I'm not arguing this is how it should be. I'm arguing this is how it is and we had better quit pontificating and realize that we are at a serious competitive disadvantage. I'm not saying this because I don't like China, or I want to stay one up on them. I actually like China and most Chinese very, very much. I just think before we all go talking about workers rights protections too much, and of course, they are important, to a reasonable extent, we need to recognize that there is a highly trained, highly motivated workforce out there that is eager to work 60+ hours a week. Should we adopt that as our model? I don't know. If that's what it takes to remain competitive, yes. If we can maintain our competitive edge in other ways, then so be it.

And I've noticed I'm engaging in a very liberal use of the word 'we'. In truth, I view China much the same way I view an EU of the future, or France/Germany/UK now. Of course, we should be friendly and fair, but we're rivals. What's good for the US economy is not necessarily good for the German economy. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do what's good for us, but we shouldn't act clueless when Germany gets a little resentful at us for doing this. Substitute any 2 market economies of scale into that equation.

Jag, you're right. Color me tickled, and thank you for the welcome. I am having a delightful time. Every red blooded male, and any woman with an eye for aesthetics should be allowed to visit Singapore at some point in their life. When the day is done, walk down to the river, sit and enjoy a nice pint, and behold the handiwork that is the female form. Mmmm... Right, where was I...

I think I'm going to start a few economic driven threads. I think we've done politics to death around here, and let's admit it fellas, sometimes we really have to scrounge to keep our moral outrage at peak capacity.

For example, I've spent the past week explaining to just about every Chinese I've met about why the EU is reintroducing market quotas on textiles. They honestly believe in many ways it's because Westerners don't like China and want to see it remain poor. Part of that is government propagada, but another, important part is the viewpoint from their side. We'd be the same way if China slapped a bunch of import limits against us. They don't understand why the EU, and to a lesser extent, the US is going to such great lengths to protect jobs that represent such a small percentage of the workforce. In their eyes, they look at us as spoiled, bratty friends.... we've already moved on and we're not using those jobs anymore, but we don't want them to have them either. To them, we're being spiteful, and several admitted they thought it was racial... that we gwai-lo want to see Asians remain poor and dependent. I did correct them of that notion, asking if that was the case, explain Japan, which in many ways has the highest standard of living in the world, hands down. They kinda agreed then, but they still don't understand. Honestly, as a uncompromising capitalist, I'm having a hard time understanding it myself sometimes. Anyways, this is all for another thread. I'm doing the typical American thing and injecting economics into a political debate.

[Adrian II]

Far left and far right lobbies won the day. Reason lost everything. Europe lost. France lost.

On ne va tout de même pas se livrer au désespoir. L’avenir est aux jeux sans frontières, Meneldil. Although I have to say this is more than a hiccup for both France and the European Union.
You see, this is why I am against referenda : voters get to say ‘Yes’or ‘No’ without being able to motivate their choice. We see a rather massive rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in France, but nobody really knows why. I think that after a brief period of paralysis there will be calls for a new Treaty, and we’ll be in for a tremendous debate about what that new Treaty should look like in order to gather majority support. Remember there are two majorities to be found here: either Centre + Right, or Centre + Left. Should a new treaty cater more to the Right with its penchant for closed borders, closed minds and closed (or should I say ‘closet’) social policies? Or should it cater more to the Left with its penchant for closed markets, social policy demands and pacifism? Both have their disadvantages, but I suppose you and I would favour a less neoliberal treaty that finds a Centre/Left majority. Let’s work toward it. Some good may yet come of this, maybe more than we imagine. In politics every loss is a new challenge.

Well, lets not forget the referendum was done during an economical crisis. In such a time, people have the urge to say 'no' to something. Had the answers been reversed, maybe the result would be different.

Le Monde has a good breakdown this morning of the facts and numbers (La France dans son jardin by Bernard le Gendre). There is no mention of an economic crisis because there is none. Growth has been lagging throughout (most of) the EU economy for half a year or so, but that doesn’t qualify as an economic crisis.
This crisis is purely political. Several trends of the past ten years have concurred to make le Non happen. In the 1992 Maastricht referendum the ‘Yes’ had it by a small margin (51+) because the government still enjoyed a true majority among voters. This time round the government majority exists merely by default. The French Left only voted for Chirac in the second round of the last presidential election because his opponent was Le Pen. A large proportion of the Left voted ‘No’ on the basis of the treaty’s supposed Neoliberal bias whilst the extreme right voted ‘No’ because it supposedly destroys French identity. France will have to chose between politics and anti-politics now. It has never made the wrong choice yet. La réforme oui, la chienlit non.

Quite so.

Good to hear from you, Louis. I’ve missed you. But please don't cry; shut up and start working on a better deal.

You're asking people to surrender their sovereignty, their identity and their decision making to a group of beauracrats they don't get to elect.

Don, you big fat guai-lo, you are parroting the Extreme Right version of the treaty. I’m not kidding, Jean-Marie le Pen would be proud of you. I know that is not your intention, and you know this is not meant as an insult (hold that baseball bat). In the European context though, such words on the Constitutional Treaty smell foul, I can’t help it.
It just isn’t true. Under the proposed Constitution, all major decisions would be made by the 25 democratically elected Heads of Government on condition of unanimity. If there is no unanimity behind a proposed rule of policy decision, it doesn’t happen. Period.
Asking people to raise the level of sovereignty to a European layer of government instead of a national layer of government does not equal loss of sovereignty if it is done in the right way. Bar calamities, this Constitution would have been a major step on the way to a fully functioning European democracy, something that is much more dear to me than the ‘social Europe’ of JAG, even though I fully agree with him that Europe should be a social democracy.
I can see the question coming : what about the corruption of ‘Brussels’? Well, Brussels is always corrupt in the eyes of those whose darlings are killed inEuropean decision making, those who are more attached to their silly little opt-outs than the future of their nation, and those who see their proposals turned down by Brussels bureaucrats because there is a better alternative. They call ‘Brussels’ corrupt because such talk about ‘big’ government is the cliche of our day and age, not because it is corrupt.
If you want to unite 25 nations of different size, history, language, religions, economy and social systems into one decision making apparatus, it requires bureaucracy in the original meaning of Weber: an impersonal body that unites interests , standardises rules and practices and sees to it that these are implemented.

[KukriKhan]

"...If you want to unite 25 nations of different size, history, language, religions, economy and social systems into one decision making apparatus...", AdrianII wrote.

Which has been the goal for what...500 years? Bravo Europe that this time the "how" of implementing that goal is done with bureaus and ballots, vs blades and bullets.

Too bad a consensus hasn't been found the first time 'round. My sympathies. But these things hardly ever resolve the first time.