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Hopeful signs from France
(Filed: 29/03/2005)
The first opinion poll showing French opposition to the European Constitution could be dismissed as an aberration; a second was worrying; the third has sent France's political elite into a panic. Not only are voters against the treaty, but also support for the "No" campaign has risen to 55 per cent, 14 points ahead of the "Yes" camp. One can almost hear the cry of "Merde!" echoing round the Elysée Palace.
We have grown so used to the flow of pro-EU rhetoric from French politicians that we tend to forget that France approved the Maastricht treaty by only the slenderest of margins. Throughout Europe, anti-EU campaigns have tended to gain, not lose, support as a particular referendum approaches; with only nine weeks to go, President Chirac is right to panic.
A "No" vote on May 29 would solve so many problems for Britain that it seems almost too much to hope for. Surely the French can be relied upon to let us down. One thing is for sure: the full weight of the Gallic establishment will be deployed in the attempt to bludgeon voters into submission. The BBC's pro-Brussels sympathies are as nothing compared with those of French television and most newspapers; the state will spend vast sums in the attempt to twist its citizens' arms. Anything that can be done will be done. But it may not be enough. French voters are in no mood to be addressed de haut en bas: the surge in support for the "No" lobby partly reflects the public's impatience with the tight-knit Parisian elite, so the propaganda may end up achieving the opposite of what was intended...
Let's see, the French are tending to 'no' because of Chirac et al. On Maastricht they nearly voted 'no' because of Mitterand. I thought the French were able to vote for their leaders, no? Why do they keep electing leaders they don't like?padisha emperor said:At Maastricht, the lmajority for the yes wa thin, because people thought that if they vote NO, François miterrand would leave. They didn't really vote for the treaty itself.
The british were never and are still not really behind the european construction.
It can explain the tonality of this article.
Kathianne said:Why do they keep electing leaders they don't like?
.
padisha emperor said:hohoho, said...
You know the environnement around the Chirac re-election.
he got 82 %, but the left, the right, the communsist voted for him, to stop JM Le Pen.
Itis not really Chirac they don't like. it is Jean Pierre Raffarin, the Prime Minister. If the NO would win, be sure that his head would be cutted of, like Robespierre
The 2 last elections on France gave the majority to the socialists : the regional election - 20 region on 22 for the socialists - and the election for the european parliament, in june 2004.
So, they are the opposition : normal that they don't like Chirac and Raffarin.
And even if officially, the socialists are for the YES, there is troubles, and now, lot of people in this party will vote NO...
But I hope that the YES will win.
Chirac is dragging us down with him
By Fraser Nelson
(Filed: 30/03/2005)
A spectre is haunting Europe - and terrifying the President of France. Jacques Chirac last week pointed the finger: "Ultra-liberalism," he warned, "is the communism of our age." By "ultra-liberalism" Mr Chirac means the sort of market economics that has made America the world's strongest economy, rescued Britain from 40 years of decline and brought prosperity to countries ranging from New Zealand to Singapore. The fact that the leader of the French centre-Right can equate this with communism is a sad illustration of how France is stuck in the political dark ages.
Mr Chirac is in a panic because the barbarians are at the gate. He sees Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic and other new members of the EU all knocking on the door of Old Europe (Proprietors: Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder) with competitive rates for accountants, architects, computer consultants and advertising firms.
These upstarts need to be put in their place, and Mr Chirac is the man to do it: with typical hauteur, he has forced Brussels in effect to ditch its services directive, which would create a market in services across the EU and let in the barbarians (and the British, who are rather good at services). He was able to get away with this because Britain's Prime Minister tragically, but not atypically, caved in.
Last week's Brussels summit was yet another "lack-of-progress" meeting on the Lisbon agenda, to which the EU signed up five years ago with the aim of making it the most competitive economic entity in the world. That now looks like a bad joke. EU leaders met regularly, scratched their heads as they pondered the lack of progress and vowed to do better before heading off to dinner. Nothing happened - but at least they paid lip service to the idea that economic liberalisation was the medicine to cure Europe's scandalous mix of stagnation, protectionism and unemployment. Now even that gesture has gone.
The market has been given a new, menacing label - "ultraliberalism". The "European social model", a euphemism for sclerotic economies, job-destroying labour regulations and enterprise-stifling welfare provisions, must now take precedence over market reforms. Services provided cheaply by lower-regulated foreign workers are now described as "social dumping". Rather than embrace liberalisation, Mr Chirac and his allies believe the EU should act as a bulwark against it. To him, the threat to future European prosperity comes not from giants like India or China, but from its pygmy new member states in east Europe.
The services directive, published in January 2004, was designed to help European companies win business in other EU countries by promoting lighter regulation and more competition, without let or hindrance by local professional associations or trade unions. The document aims to make good the promise of the EU's 1957 founding treaty: a "common market" for services as well as goods.
Today, services count for 70 per cent of European jobs and four out of every five new jobs. The EU's future depends on a dynamic service sector. But Europe is thick with cobwebs that restrict competition across borders. Copenhagen Economics, a research group, reckons the directive would create 600,000 jobs across the EU's 25 countries. But these would come at the expense of Old Europe.
Having fended off competition for five decades, Germany and France are now fighting to destroy it altogether. In the space of 14 months, the services directive has already been watered down 23 times, each waiver pandering to the inefficiencies of various countries. But even its remaining few teeth are too sharp for France or Germany. Mr Chirac, as always, plays the national hero by encouraging apocalyptic interpretations of the directive. He demands the attention of the European elite, citing France's May 29 referendum on the constitution: let me have my way, he says, or the vote might be lost, casting the EU into chaos.
He is right to be worried. Recent polls depict a sharp swing to the "No" side, but this has little to do with the directive and everything to do with France's unpopular elite. The French are a lost tribe these days: they bemoan the decline of their country, yet take to the streets the moment any leader shows the gumption to do something about. it. Germany is not much better. "Under no circumstances should the directive go through," says Chancellor Schröder, even as he is supposed to be presiding over liberalising reforms at home.
New Europe used to regard the British as its ally against Franco-German hegemony. But in Brussels last week Tony Blair was his usual duplicitous self. He conceded that the directive should be redrafted to take account of the "European social model". Back in London, he denied anything had been given away, even suggesting that the phrase "European social model" had no meaning.
But Continental Europe is in no doubt what it means. Sweden's trade minister put it thus: "High employment and good working conditions create people who feel secure. Unemployment and uncertain conditions create insecurity. European co-operation must not be used to play off wage earners against each other."
Economic data published last week illustrated yet again a familiar EU correlation: countries with high tax and protectionism pay for it with mass unemployment. While workers may be happier, pace the Swedish minister, there are far fewer at work. In France, unemployment has jumped to a five-year high of 10 per cent. In Germany, unemployment is now higher than at any time since the Weimar Republic.
Last Monday, Sweden's largest trade union admitted that the official 5.5 per cent unemployment rate is hiding a "real unemployment" of 20 to 25 per cent, which includes those claiming long-term sick pay or having taken early state retirement. The Blair Government affects to be appalled by such devices. In fact, it is adopting the same agenda.
Gordon Brown has spent the past four years tiptoeing towards Europe's failed social model by lifting British government spending as a share of GDP towards that of the euro zone. Furthermore, he already pays 2.7 million people to be long-term sick. A quarter of working-age Britons had no job in the three months to last January, yet only 2.1 per cent claimed unemployment benefit. And Mr Blair wants a waiver from the services directive to ensure Britain's wasteful NHS is protected from overseas competition.
Britain, in other words, is slowly drifting from New Europe to Old.
