« The Washington Post Has a Deep Throat Blog | Main | Did French, Dutch Deliver 'Killer Blow' to EU Constitution? »
June 02, 2005
European Voters Send 'Salutary Warning' to Leaders
Gamal Nkrumah of the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram contends that "Europe has hit a soft patch. It is a salutary warning," he said in the June 2-8, 2005 issue, adding: Europeans are no longer enamoured of their own continent. The continent's electorates are forcing its politicians to have the EU returned to its founding principles. The Lisbon agenda of economic reform has been rejected by the French and Dutch electorate. Europe's politicians cannot press ahead with anti-people economic reforms. In France, it was the left that was held primarily responsible for the 'non' vote. "A masterpiece of masochism," trumpeted the French daily Liberation. The French and Dutch rejection of the European constitution prompted a continental debate on the future of Europe. Eurosceptics had a field day. However, the French 'non' doesn't necessarily mean that they were vindicated. Nor does it mean that other European nations avoid further referendums and ratify the EU constitution by parliamentary vote. Several other European countries, in any case, are going ahead with the ratification of the constitution.
Mr. Nkrumah said, "The Spanish opted for a decisive 'si', so much to their consternation, the French vote came as a shock. The Dutch 'no', not surprisingly, was a foregone conclusion." See "Bruises of the EU bandwagon" for the rest of Mr. Nkruma's analysis.
Posted by Munir Umrani at June 2, 2005 08:15 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.thediplomatictimes.info/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/722
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)