The end of Europe.1
Clearly demonstrated the deep division that exists between the European elite and the citizens of Europe.2
Underneath all this there is a more profound question, which is about the future of Europe.3
"No" brings Europe to a kind of standstill.4
For me, the worst that could happen is if the citizens of the European Union or the leaders of the European Union enter into a zone of paralysis psychologically.5
Europe is still dealing with the Irish audacity of No, its unsurprising rejection of the Lisbon Treaty last Thursday. Search the opinion columns of the European press, and you'll likely come up with sentiment similar to that expressed above. Only the quotes I've provided date back to May 2005, when French voters rejected the EU constitution, the failed precursor to the Lisbon Treaty. Providing the wisdom back then were:
1Romano Prodi, former EU Commission President;
2President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic;
3Tony Blair, then British PM;
4Jean-Luc Dehaene, former Belgian PM;
5Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief.
Some of these luminaries are still in the same jobs; others (Blair, Prodi, Dehaene) have gone on to other occupations. The quotes are found in "French No Vote on European Constitution Rattles Continent," by Elaine Sciolino in the 31 May 2005 New York Times.
Perhaps the only unexpected aspect of Thursday's referendum was the relatively high turnout (53.1 %). As an informed Irish reader of this blog put it, the high turnout revealed "the fallacy of the silent majority's favorable feelings towards the EU." The same reader pointed me in the direction of pre-vote analysis by Irish writer David McWilliams, who pondered on the eve of the referendum ("Why 'Yes' and 'No' voters are in a class of their own")
Is the debate on the Lisbon Treaty coming down to class? Is the overwhelming bourgeois accent of the ‘Yes’ vote an election issue? In an era when many considered class politics to be more or less over, the social breakdown in the polls is fascinating. The trend that has emerged is that the middle-class is considerably more pro-European than the working class. According to the latest polls, the ‘Yes’ campaign is only ahead among the better off voters. So the posh are pro-Europe while the majority of the working class is planning a ‘No’ vote.
With the benefit of hindsight, now you can look at the Irish Times' great interactive map, showing the map of Ireland divided into No (flaming red) and Yes (bright green) and Undecided (gray for Dublin, which was still counting when the Times went to print). Beyond the Pale (the way the English described Ireland outside of the Dublin area in the old days), poorer, rural Ireland appears to have given Lisbon a massive Red light. But why?
Fintan O'Toole, assistant editor of the Irish Times writing in today's Guardian, speaks of the "scattergun negativity" of the naysayers defeating the "miserable" and uninspired Yes campaign ("Good for Ireland, Good for Europe"). His examples of voter sentiment would make you laugh, if you didn't want to cry:
- One anonymous voter was using the opportunity of a vote on the structural reform of the European Union to protest against the withdrawal by the newly privatised state airline Aer Lingus of its regular service between Shannon airport and Heathrow.
- Another voter "got a bit of information that, if I voted yes, my sons would be drafted into the army, so I voted no ... Our sons are too good-looking for the army."
Of course, we know how irrational voters can be once in the booth, and I fear what results such behavior will yield in next November's US presidential elections. But that's what happens in democracies: people will do the damnedest things.
But once the "end of Europe as we know it" ill-informed reaction to this vote subsides, serious minds will approach the negotiating table with salvage in mind... just like Nicolas Sarkozy did last year when he helped unravel the mess that French voters helped cause when they rejected the EU constitution. Getting Europe right is messy, time-consuming, frustrating, expensive, and more. But, as Romano Prodi told Elaine Sciolino three years ago after the French reverse, "This is still better than a war of secession like the United States once had. We must keep this perspective in mind. We don't have a treaty, but we also don't have wars."