A song for Europe

No would be the right answer in next week's French and Dutch referendums - and a good one for Europe

THE voters, quite plainly, are in a restive, perhaps even angry mood. That will be so even if the outcomes in the French referendum on the European Union's constitution on May 29th and the Dutch one on June 1st turn out to surprise the opinion pollsters by producing narrow votes in favour of the treaty. When this constitution was agreed upon by heads of government last year, few seriously envisaged that it might be rejected or even actively disliked by voters in two of the EU's six founding members. It was countries in the Union's awkward squad - Denmark, Britain, Poland - that were expected to pose problems. That is the trouble when you draft ambitious measures designed to bring Europe closer to the people. The people then have the cheek to tell you what they think.

But why, Euro-enthusiasts have been asking themselves, can't a clear majority of voters be persuaded by two fine arguments that we have offered to them? The first is that the constitution is a noble document designed to help today's enlarged EU march on more efficiently towards an “ever closer union”, one that (as the French Socialist Party says in its pro-constitution campaign) can be forte face aux Etats Unis (strong in the face of the United States). The other is that the treaty is just a technical matter that will make little real difference and is too boring for voters to worry their pretty heads about.

One reason, of course, is that the arguments are contradictory. That clash is easily solvable, for the second one is nonsense. Weighing in at almost 200 pages in its French version, this treaty contains a bill of rights, redefines the role and powers of the EU's institutions, lays down new rules for how decisions will be made and provides a new text for European judges to interpret. That is no mere technical matter and fully deserves the term “constitution”, however much some worried Europhiles may now regret the word. Another reason, though, is that some voters may not really be offering their verdict on the constitution at all but instead on economic anxiety and their governments' record.

That is, it is true, the trouble with referendums. Even if many do cast their ballots on the question actually posed, enough voters may cast protests to distort the result. And there is no doubt that economic anxiety is rife in Europe: that is why Germany's Gerhard Schroder took such a drubbing in regional elections on May 23rd. Against that, however, lies the fact that there has been no shortage of debate about the real issue in either France or the Netherlands. There has been ample chance to focus most voters' minds on the constitution itself and indeed interest has run high. Yet there is also another point: that it is not entirely unreasonable to link economic anxieties with the treaty.

It is not that the constitution will have much impact on the European economy if in the end it comes into force. Moreover the text is not, contrary to the claims of many French antis, “ultra-liberal”. The Economist, which is proud to be liberal with or without the adjective, wishes it were so. But the treaty makes no stipulations about economic arrangements more radical than those that France did so much to craft in the Treaty of Rome in 1957, which provided for the abolition of obstacles to the free movement between member states of goods, persons, services and capital. If the new system would be ultra-liberal, then the European Union must always have been so. The truth, of course, is otherwise and so it will be in the future. Rather, the real link is not about policy but about confidence. At a time when people are so anxious about their futures, any sort of change feels alarming. And an accurate criticism of the change envisaged by the constitution is that it is highly ambiguous, not to say bewildering; it will transfer some more power away from national governments and to the EU, but with effects of which no one can be at all sure.

E unum pluribus

This newspaper's objections to the constitution are well known; any readers that would like a reminder can find our two previous leaders urging a rejection on our website at www.economist.com/euconstitution, along with the constitution we immodestly drafted ourselves in 2000. No doubt our specific ideas would be considered impractical for a Union of 25 member states, all with interests and ideas of their own. But there is a theme running through our constitution and rejectionist articles that has much in common with the anti-treaty feelings being seen in France and the Netherlands.

This is that the divergence of views and national prejudices in the EU are so wide that it is a mistake to try to force more and more policy areas into a single framework. Indeed, there are already too many: every country has some complaint about policies being foisted on it from Brussels. Some of that is desirable, for the Union has always been in part a means by which national governments force their electorates to accept rules that they might not have been able to impose on their own. But such a process has limits, which are being shown all too clearly in these referendums. A process remote from the people is unlikely to remain popular for long. And a larger Union, whether at the old 15 countries, today's 25, or in future even larger, is likely to become more remote, not less - especially if it tries to take on more and more common policies.

What is needed instead is a treaty that acknowledges the central popular concern: that an EU that is increasingly remote is also a threat to the diversity of Europe's nations and thus to national identity. Admittedly the draft constitution does leave plenty of scope for national variation; the French could nationalise (although not subsidise) their banks, if they were foolish enough to want to do so; the British could still privatise their hospitals. But the central thrust of the document is towards more centralisation.

This is a big mistake. First, it cuts down on the range of political choices open to national electorates - and thus is anti-democratic and liable to provoke a backlash. Second, the EU is capable of producing some remarkably awful policies, which because of its consensual way of policymaking become almost impossible to change once established and eventually risk discrediting the whole project. Farms policy is the best example. Finally, it is more likely that good policy will be promoted in Europe by the power of example than by fiat from Brussels. France is likelier to embrace reform because it sees Britain or Spain flourishing with different sorts of policies than because Brussels tells it to. But for this process to work, it is essential that the maximum freedom of manoeuvre is left for national governments. America's slogan of “E pluribus unum” means “out of many, one”. Europe's, though, can and should be the reverse: out of one, many.

Whether or not the French and Dutch electorates kill this current constitution, the EU's future will depend on both permitting and exploiting the continent's very diversity. A Europe that allows different approaches to be tried, whether in single countries or in groups of countries, whether “core” or “non-core”, is likely to be one that survives. A defeat for the constitution would not be the catastrophe that some Europhiles seem to think: life would go on, even in Brussels, and a Union that has lasted for almost half a century is surely strong enough to deal with the occasional rebuff from voters. If it responds by taking a pause for thought, it might even benefit.

Editorial says: No would be the right answer in the French and Dutch referendums - and a good one for Europe.