quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic This part I don't get entirely: Could the French parliament have ratified the constitution with no voting? If so, then this is truely ironic - finally Chirac's obnoxious pride lands him in trouble, but he's taking the whole of Europe down with him.

Almost all governments have the power to ratify treaties and the EU constitution without referenda. The issue is political legitimacy - if it's approved by a referendum, arguably the Constitution has more legitimacy.


What we have here in this case is the people revolting against the elitist political establishment, not unlike the French Revolution (which I believe was one of the greatest tragedies in Western civilization).

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quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic This part I don't get entirely: Could the French parliament have ratified the constitution with no voting? If so, then this is truely ironic - finally Chirac's obnoxious pride lands him in trouble, but he's taking the whole of Europe down with him.

Yes, france wasnt going to have a refferrendum at first, but then they decided to have one since some other countries had, and they didnt want to be worse than any other country.

And yes, too bad chiracs pride is taking europe down...

While it is obvious that Chirac wanted to use the constitution referendum for his own personal agenda, it seems that the french people are blinded by wanting to take him down in a way that they don't see how a "no" would cause much more harm to the whole of Europe, including themselves.

quote:

Originally posted by ShadoWolf What we have here in this case is the people revolting against the elitist political establishment, not unlike the French Revolution (which I believe was one of the greatest tragedies in Western civilization).

Yes, really horrible, causing feudalism to collapse, giving all people equal rights and that stuff.

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LOL, just read about some research that have been done about french refferendums, and its basically that in every referendum that has been before, 3 factors has always decided the outcome:

• How popular the ones who wanted the refferendum are (ie the government).
  
• How complex the issue is.
  
• How the economy is doing and how pessimistic the french society currently is.

None of the above is looking good right now. So i guess it's a "non". Yay, go france!

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Originally posted by St_Andrew the problem is that ppl dont think longer than their noose. Its impossible to create a treaty that 25 member countries can be perfectly satisfied with, you gotta compromise to get it to work. Ppl dont realize that (just see of whats happening in france), politicians on the other hand who is more into the politics, do realise it. Thats why almost every paliament is 70%+ for and most countries populations are against. Also, very few have read the constitution and know what it is about. Again, just see whats happening in france, the things they complain about in the constitution is already etablished in current treaties, but yet they vote no because they think that somehow will solve the "problem". Pure ignorance. Democracy do no good here.

Im sorry but this arguement is ridiculous.

A European Constitution which will be set in place without the agreement of its citizens who were to be bound by it, will lack legitimacy.

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Anyway regardless of how the French vote, the Dutch vote next wedensday June 1st and it seems even more likely than the French that the Dutch will vote no.

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Originally posted by zig Im sorry but this arguement is ridiculous. A European Constitution which will be set in place without the agreement of its citizens who were to be bound by it, will lack legitimacy.

But ppl dont know what they are voting at!!!

The main argument in france for example, seems to be that the constitution is too liberal. But the thing is that the constitution doesnt really change anything here, just look at the article i posted a while back, where you pretty much can see that everything thats about a liberal economy in the constitution is already implemented, IN THE ROME TREATY FROM 1957!!! So france really should leave the EU entirly if thats what they dont like about it, then they would also sooner or later discoer that they were wrong, a liberal economy would be best for france, but thats another discussion entirly. Thing is, either vote yes for the constitution or go out of the EU.

Another reason ppl vote no, is because of the current government and that they want to protest it, also very mature way of decideing the future of europe.

Neither of these arguments hold any water imo, if the argument would be that france is losing soverignity in some areas where they wont have a veto anymore, then i would somehow understand it, even tho i wouldnt agree with it (since its simply impossible to have 25 countries constantly unamineusly agreeing with each other). But the arguments they have now is simply ridiculous! So i dont think you can defend this refferrendum in any way.

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Anyway regardless of how the French vote, the Dutch vote next wedensday June 1st and it seems even more likely than the French that the Dutch will vote no.

Yes, but that wont mean as much as a french no, even tho that referendum is equally as stupid, if not even more.

quote:

Originally posted by zig A European Constitution which will be set in place without the agreement of its citizens who were to be bound by it, will lack legitimacy.

Can you tell me a constitution which was put in place with the full democratic agreement of the citizens who were to be bound by it?

IMO we live in representative democracies because its the practical half-way point between full democracy and dictatorship, where citizens elect representatives on the basis of the values that these claim to fight for, and then leave the resolvement of complex issues to the representatives.
The question of whether to adopt the constitution for any single memberstate is way too complex for it to be presented in the two minutes that constitute the attention span of the average news watcher.

But, expecting a "no" from France and the Netherlands, I really really hope that the remaining states will continue down this path, with the option of the two sceptical countries to join later if they want to.

you should be given an exam on the constitution before you are allowed vote on it.

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Originally posted by Michael19 you should be given an exam on the constitution before you are allowed vote on it.

and 99% of the people would fail in full.


In regards to what Marie brought it, it will happen regardless it's happened regardless. If there was a fear to come out of this it would be the massive migration of eastern countries to the west depending on your personal views on the matter.
Now the hypocry of the situation well the irony too.
France has a 10% or so unemployement rate yet there are 100 000's jobs that are vacant and that aren't being filled because of stupid hiring standards unrealistic demands and a backwards system.

Once again the French are wanting to vote No simply because they want to get back at their local government but fail to see the bigger picture; off course it will be far from perfect but it could be better and there will be some compromises all rules established between various parties are standardely filled with compromise.



On a side note:
I was in the US when the november elections were happening. I actually campaigned and everything but all I can say is before it was over we wished it was a done deal. Too much political chat on tv debates newspaper articles etc it was plain annoying.

I've now been back in France since january and now the constitutional vote issue being discussed for months?

Man I am about to OD on politics!

really interesting comments here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/4566965.stm

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Disco and classical had sex while watching a sci-fi movie. Their child: trance.