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Friday, June 18, 2004

The 60,000 Word Monster 

Eurosceptics scored big in the recent European Parliamentary elections, but they've got bigger fish to fry. EU big honchos are in self-congratulatory mode for successfully negotiating the quasi-federalistic European Constitution.

As I reflected on in a previous post, this is going to probably be a hard fight. I expect most governments on the Continent to pass this thing without much of a fight: if the pols there knew any better, they wouldn't have drove the voters to the Eurosceptics in the first place. The biggest hopes for quashing this thing are in the British Isles: the UK and Ireland will hold referenda on the question.

How far this goes is hard to say. Failing to ratify the Constitution would essentially mean that a country would either end up dropping out of the EU, or be in some sort of diplomatic limbo. How many countries are willing to make such a bold move is hard to say, but it's quite possible that if more than one country fail to ratify, then the EU-philes have a real problem on their hands.

But if just one country doesn't toe the line, then expect the Nice Treaty scenario: "Don't like it? Wrong answer: try again."
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