The decisive rejection of the EU Constitution by the French and Dutch casts doubt on the euro's future

摘要

Everybody knows that 'no' means 'no': it doesn't mean 'yes', does it? Well, following the decisive 'non' and 'nee' votes by the French and the Dutch over whether to sign up to the European Constitution, perhaps someone should tell European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. Describing the French rejection as "a very serious problem", the former Prime Minister of Portugal insisted: "We can not say that the treaty is dead." It is all rather like those Elvis Presley fans who refuse to believe that 'the King' is dead - he's out there, somewhere in the deep Mid-West, flipping burgers. The rejection of the Constitution in France came from all parts of the political spectrum, including Communists, dissident Socialists and right-wing parties such as Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front Party. The French Left saw the Constitution as a Trojan Horse, a dastardly plot by Tony Blair to foist 'neo-liberaP free-market economics on the EU and, in the process, strip France of its generous benefits system. Jean-Pierre Raffarin - the French PM until French President Jacques Chirac replaced him with the unelected Dominique de Villepin - said that there "were fears in France that jobs could drift to new EU members in eastern Europe, where taxes are lower and workers work for less".