Charlemagne: Putting the clog in

Why Dutch voters may upset the European constitution

FOR months European leaders have been transfixed by the fear that the French may say no to the European Union's constitutional treaty. But they may have been looking in the wrong direction. For the opinion polls suggest that the biggest threat to the constitution will not be the French vote on May 29th, but the Dutch referendum three days later, on June 1st.

French opinion polls are neck and neck, with a slight tilt back to no this week; but the bookmakers still make the yes campaign the favourite to win. In the Netherlands, by contrast, the most recent poll by Maurice de Hond, the country's leading pollster, has the no campaign ahead by 55% to 45%. Mr De Hond says that, unless the debate changes radically in the next couple of weeks, “I'm very confident it will be a no.” For the first time, the Dutch government's own polls are also showing the no campaign ahead, albeit only by one point.

Since all 25 members of the EU have to ratify the constitution for it to come into force, a Dutch “nee” would have just as much legal significance as a French “non”. It is true that, politically, France matters more: it is a bigger country and its statesmen played the central role in getting the European project going in the first place. But the importance of the Netherlands to the EU - and therefore the significance of a Dutch no to the constitution - should not be underplayed. Like the French, the Dutch were among the six founders of the European Economic Community in the 1950s. The treaty that led to a single currency for Europe was signed in Maastricht; a later treaty was signed in Amsterdam. The first head of the European Central Bank was Dutch. With a population of 16m, the Netherlands cannot be dismissed as a tiny country. It has also traditionally been solidly pro-European, with no equivalent of the French Gaullist tradition. On this basis, a Dutch rejection of the EU constitution would in some ways be even more shocking than a French one.

The themes of the Dutch and French campaigns have been wholly different. French complaints that the EU has been hijacked by “ultra-liberal” economic reformers find little echo in the Netherlands. Instead Dutch Eurosceptics sound more like their British counterparts, giving warnings that their country may be turned into a province of a European superstate.

Yet there is one broad similarity between the Dutch and French campaigns. In both countries, the no side is feeding off a powerful anti-establishment sentiment. In the Netherlands, all the main political parties, representing 85% of parliamentarians, are in favour of a yes. So are the employers' association, the trade unions and almost all newspapers. Yet this elite consensus may actually be proving counter-productive. Ever since Pim Fortuyn, a populist anti-immigration politician who was later assassinated, burst on to the scene in 2002, the scope for running against the Dutch establishment has been obvious. Michiel van Hulten, co-ordinator of the independent yes campaign, frets that the referendum is turning into a “confrontation between the political elite and the Dutch population”.

The no campaign is about a lot more than incoherent resentment of the ruling class, however. The Dutch also have solid reasons for being disgruntled with the EU. On a per head basis, they are the largest net contributors to the EU budget, which is clearly unfair, given that the Netherlands is by no means the richest member. The replacement of the Dutch guilder by the euro is also widely believed to have caused inflation. Only 39% of Dutch people reckon their new currency has been a success, a higher level of unhappiness than in any other euro member. Disillusionment has been fed by the fact that the Dutch government fought hard for a strict interpretation of the rules on budget deficits in the euro area, only to be overruled by France and Germany. The no campaign points out that the same elite that signed up to the euro and allowed mass immigration with little public discussion is now lining up behind the EU constitution. “People say that too many important changes have been made without real debate”, concedes Atzo Nicolai, the government's Europe minister, “and they are right about that.”

Scare stories in the low countries

Faced with a referendum campaign that is threatening to go badly wrong, the Dutch government's reaction has been simultaneously shrill and lackadaisical. The economics minister has declared that a rejection of the constitution would mean that “in the long run, the lights will go out and we will lock our country out of Europe.” The justice minister has suggested that western Europe could even slide into Balkan-style wars. Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch prime minister, said that a visit to Auschwitz had brought home to him the importance of supporting European integration.

If the possible consequences of a Dutch no vote really included economic collapse, war and genocide, it seems a bit casual of Mr Balkenende to head off to Malta just three weeks before the vote. Aware that dire warnings of catastrophe have been greeted with a mixture of scorn and irritation, the government has now sworn off these scare tactics. Instead, the yes campaigners are using the closing weeks of the campaign to portray the constitution as a modest document (“not even a real constitution”, they say) that is beneficial, but not that radical.

It remains quite possible that a country with such a strong history of commitment to the European cause will in the end back the constitution. But in case of rejection in either France or the Netherlands, pro-constitution forces will be ready with excuses. The French, it will be said, were really voting about high unemployment and their dislike of Jacques Chirac. As for the Dutch, they are still in the grip of the national angst unleashed by Fortuyn. A double rejection, however, would raise a more disquieting thought: that the problem was not the French or Dutch electorates, but the constitution itself.

Commentary feature looking at why Dutch voters may upset the European constitution.