A new Europe

This magazine has a good record of opposing the centralising treaties of the EU. Alone in the media, The Spectator came out in 1985 against the Single European Act, which marked the first big expansion of the qualified majority vote. With a growing pack at our heels, we then opposed the treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice, and of course we are pleased that this federalising ‘constitution’ has been rejected by the French. Our jubilation is alloyed, however, by an embarrassing reality. The French people unquestionably did the right thing. They did it, alas, for the wrong reasons.

The French Non was largely a protest against the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ economic model, when the truth is that the constitution goes no further in entrenching free markets than do existing treaties; but then the French weren’t interested in the text. They wanted to register a squawk of irritation against Chirac and against the way they see France and Europe going. French workers and farmers are fearful of workers and farm products from eastern Europe, and positively paranoid about the planned entry of Turkey into the EU. They weren’t rejecting the constitution per se. They were recording their superstition that a free-market Europe is already destroying their world of subsidy and welfare, and they want someone to turn the clock back. Already, French demagogues are starting to respond to this nonsense. RPR chief Nicolas Sarkozy is calling for more ‘protection’, and the danger is that a concerted attempt will now be made to palliate French opinion, by curbing the operation of the free market both within the EU and on its borders. That would be disastrous for France and for Europe.