The European Union constitution. Dead, but not yet buried

Voters in France and the Netherlands have killed the EU constitution

THE Thalys train that runs from Paris to Amsterdam via Brussels is a symbol of the high-tech, borderless Europe that the leaders of the European Union want to build. But this week, the Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam route became the fault-line for a European political earthquake. The first shock hit in France on the night of May 29th, when exit polls showed that France had voted to reject the EU constitution by 55-45%. In the European Commission building in Brussels, the news was met with a collective gasp - and, from somewhere in the crowd, an “ooh-la-la”.

Senior officials responded with all the panicky reactions of a small-town mayor in an American disaster movie. The insistence of Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg and current president of the EU, that the constitution was not dead, and that ratification must continue, was echoed by José Manuel Barroso and Josép Borrell, presidents of the European Commission and the European Parliament respectively. Even when, on June 1st, the Dutch voted still more strongly against the constitution, the EU's worthies insisted that ratification must continue elsewhere.

The Dutch and French noes are a terrible blow to the morale of true believers in political union, whose faith in the historical inevitability of their dream may never recover. Given the depth of the commitment of such men as Mr Juncker to the project, it is not surprising that his first reaction was of defiance. But the arguments for continuing with ratification seem increasingly surreal.

The legal position is that, for the constitution to come into force, all 25 members of the EU must ratify it. When they signed the text in Rome last October, EU leaders attached a declaration that if, two years later, four-fifths of countries had ratified, but some had “encountered difficulties”, an EU summit would be held to consider the situation. This declaration is the basis for Mr Juncker's insistence that ratification must continue. He points out that nine countries have already ratified the constitution (although only Spain did so via a referendum). Are the wishes of the nine to be ignored, simply because the French and Dutch have encountered difficulties?

Yet there is a strong risk that referendums in Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic or Britain, and even in Mr Juncker's own Luxembourg, which is planning to vote on July 10th, will produce further rejections. And it is anyway hard to see how anybody can seriously be asked to vote on a text whose legal status is now in limbo. To send people to the polls to answer a hypothetical question is to invite trouble. The British, though treading carefully, are clearly looking for a way to bring the ratification process to a halt, most likely at the EU summit on June 16th and 17th.

The broader problem is that EU leaders had assumed that potential non-ratifiers would either be small countries, such as Denmark or the Czech Republic - whose arms might be twisted into voting again - or a more sceptical country such as Britain. Some keen federalists relished the idea of presenting the British with the stark choice of ratifying the constitution or leaving the EU. But it is impossible to see either “solution ” - -a second vote or expulsion - applying to France or the Netherlands.

If it were not to invite an even bigger raspberry, a new vote would have to be on a text that had been revised or qualified in some way. But the strongest French demands in any renegotiation would be for some kind of extension of French social protection to the rest of the EU, which other members would never concede. Yet if renegotiation and a second vote are unthinkable, so is the option of chucking France out. Unlike Britain, France has always been politically (and geographically) central to the EU. Like the Netherlands, France is one of the six founders, and also one of the 12 that have joined the single European currency, the euro. An EU without France is simply unimaginable.

How else might the EU get out of its crisis? Technocrats in Brussels are already talking of cherry-picking parts of the constitution that could be pushed through without changing the treaties - a strategy that might avert new referendums. The difficulty is that some key provisions - changes to the voting system, the abolition of some vetoes, the creation of a Charter of Fundamental Rights - undoubtedly require treaty amendments. The one big change that lawyers think might be achievable without referendums is creating a foreign minister, which could be done by inter-governmental agreement. But that could be politically tricky. After the French and Dutch votes, anything smacking of an elite-driven attempt to circumvent the popular will would look awful.

Cherry-picking the constitution is not in any case a response to the crisis of legitimacy revealed by these votes. One idea long popular with federalists is for a “hard core” led by France and Germany to forge ahead with an ever-closer union. There are some common points in the German and French debates that might aid such a venture, notably shared anxiety about the impact of enlargement. But it is hard to see France's Jacques Chirac or Germany's Gerhard Schroder being able to pursue such an option now. Mr Chirac has been humiliated, and Mr Schroder is likely to lose the German election in September. One unkind member of Mr Chirac's own party was quoted in Le Figaro this week likening the Chirac-Schroder partnership to one between the “blind and the crippled”.

If France cannot regain the initiative in Europe through a joint venture with Germany, it may become increasingly curmudgeonly in its dealings with the EU. This would be bad news for future enlargement of the club. Even Bulgaria and Romania, which have signed accession treaties, could find the doors bolted at the last moment - the French parliament still has to ratify Bulgarian and Romanian membership. The omens are worse for Turkey, due to start membership talks with the EU in October. The prospect of Turkish membership was a strong card for the no campaigns in both France and the Netherlands. Angela Merkel, who is likely to be the next German chancellor, is against Turkish membership of the EU. Even if negotiations start on time, they may do so only on the basis of the EU making even clearer that there is no promise of eventual Turkish membership.

The French will kick up a fuss on other issues too. Mr Chirac will press harder than ever to scrap the British budget rebate, which will worsen his already bad relations with Britain's Tony Blair, who will take over the EU presidency from Mr Juncker in July. France will also oppose further economic liberalisation, in direct opposition to the commission. Watching from Berlin, one senior German official predicts gloomily that “if France pushes its national interests even harder, others will do the same. We may be entering a new era of national egoism.”