CASE STUDIES IN SOFT UTOPIA
GETTING IT RIGHT THE SECOND TIME
“Europe’s nations should be guided towards the superstate without their people understanding what is happening . . . which will eventually lead to federation.”1 Adrian Hilton’s synopsis of the Monnet method could not be more apt. By stealth and subterfuge, ever closer union is to be made inevitable. This means overriding any voters, even majorities of voters, if they stand in the way.
Perhaps the most blatant indicator of the EU’s disrespect for democracy is its refusal to accept the results of votes in the EU member states that do not turn out “correctly.” It is a disturbing story. More unsettling is that so few people seem to care that their voices are slowly being silenced. It might be more accurate to say that few are fully aware of what has been happening, because of the sheer distance of Brussels and the disarming rhetoric of democracy that EU leaders employ.
GETTING THE DANES TO YES
The first time that EU elites refused to accept a democratic vote occurred more than twenty years ago. On June 2, 1992, Denmark held a referendum on the Treaty on European Union, or the Maastricht Treaty, which had been signed that February. By a 50.7% vote, with 83.1% of voters participating, the Danes rejected the treaty. This was a major setback for European integration, delivered directly by voters themselves.
The reaction of EU elites was largely a combination of shock and incomprehension, followed by resolve to keep moving forward, with or without the Danes. Jacques Delors, president of the European Commission at the time and a mythic figure in supranationalist lore, said, “the Commission takes note of the views of the Danish people, who are fully entitled to make these views known and have done so in accordance with democratic procedure.” Nevertheless, he went on, “the Commission is bound to say that it fears the result will have consequences not only for the Community itself but also for Denmark and the Danes.” Delors expressed the Commission’s hope that member states would “proceed to ratify on schedule.”2
Even some of those associated with Euroskeptics did not want to listen to the Danes. After all, the negotiations had been so arduous. According to John Major, then the British prime minister and a member of the generally Euroskeptic Conservative Party, “The Maastricht treaty began to build the kind of European Community that we wish to see. . . . I do not believe that a substantial renegotiation of the Maastricht treaty is a practical proposition at this time. We must wait and see what action the Danish Government will take, but I still hope that the full provision of the Maastricht treaty will be carried forth into law.”3 The Danish prime minister, Poul Schluter, sounded somewhat nonplussed: “We all know that we must find a solution which does not necessitate re-ratification processes in the other countries,” he said, adding that he thought such a solution was possible.4
Clearly, the verdict of the Danish voters could not be allowed to stand. Unless all EU member states ratify a treaty, it cannot come into effect. And Maastricht had to come into effect. The dream depended on it. It was the Treaty on European Union, heralding the birth of the EU and charting the path toward the common currency, which was to unify Europe not only economically, but also politically. Exactly there, of course, was the rub. The Maastricht Treaty impinged extensively on national sovereignty.
Therefore, at their December 1992 summit, European Community leaders concluded the Edinburgh Agreement, giving the Danes opt-outs from the Maastricht Treaty to allow them to guard their national prerogatives in areas they considered vital to national sovereignty. Denmark thus opted out of closer cooperation on matters related to national defense. Neither would it participate in the common currency. It would not be subject to monetary or fiscal measures related to the euro, and would remain outside the jurisdiction of the European Central Bank. The Edinburgh Agreement also clarified that “citizenship of the Union” as foreseen in the treaty did not “in any way take the place of national citizenship,” nor would it “create a citizenship of the Union in the sense of citizenship of a nation-state.”5
Denmark then held a second referendum, in May 1993. The defeat of the first referendum was largely due to Danish voters’ desire to retain Danish national sovereignty and not be subject to a supranational entity that was not directly accountable to them. After concluding the Edinburgh Agreement, the Danish political elite took it as a given that the Edinburgh opt-outs had satisfied Danish voters’ concerns. They downplayed the broader question of the democratic legitimacy of transferring powers from a democratically accountable national government to a poorly understood, much more loosely accountable European Union. Upon wrapping up the agreement, Prime Minister Schluter had commented, “We can now expect a clear ‘yes’ in the next referendum. I am very happy that our future participation in European co-operation now seems ensured . . . .”6 With seven of the eight political parties in the Danish parliament pushing for it, those in favor of the Maastricht Treaty won a strong victory: 56.7% of voters said yes, with an 86.5% turnout.
The other countries that held a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty were France and Ireland. Voters in both countries approved the treaty. In Ireland, 69.5% voted in favor, with a 57.3% turnout. It was different in France: with an overall 69.7% turnout, the yes votes just squeaked by, at 51%. Serious misgivings about the ushering in of “European Union” were clearly not limited to Denmark.
TEACHING THE IRISH A LESSON OR TWO
Ireland has traditionally looked favorably on EU membership and closer European integration, as demonstrated in the voters’ approval of the Maastricht Treaty by almost 70%. There are two main reasons for this. The most commonly cited reason is that EU membership gave Ireland access to EU markets and massive amounts of EU “structural funds,” fueling its economic boom and its rise from one of the poorest Western European countries to one of the richest. It is quite true that Ireland had seen impressive growth by the time the eurozone crisis hit, and boasted a per capita GDP rivaling that of the very richest member states. The second reason, less often cited but just as important, is the troubled history of Great Britain’s dominance of Ireland. The Irish believe that EU membership gives them independence and freedom to maneuver vis-à-vis their much larger neighbor to the east, between Ireland and the continent. Nevertheless, the Irish have twice failed to vote the “correct” way, and consequently have twice been called upon to “get it right the second time.”
In June 2001, Irish voters rejected the Treaty of Nice by a solid majority. This treaty was ostensibly an effort to reform the EU in order to handle the upcoming enlargement from fifteen to twenty-five member states (with most of the new ones coming from the former Eastern Bloc). In reality, though, it was also an attempt to deepen European integration, taking more powers from the member states and handing them to the EU. In Ireland, 53.8% of voters said no to the treaty, with only 34.8% of registered voters participating in the referendum.
According to common wisdom, Irish voters were concerned that the Treaty of Nice might threaten Irish neutrality (as Ireland is a convinced neutral militarily and is not, for example, a member of NATO), and they worried that it gave too much power to the large member states, putting smaller ones at a disadvantage. But the Nice Treaty vote was also a wake-up call to both Irish and EU leaders. The Irish voters wanted their voices to be heard by their elected leaders. At the same time, the low turnout for the referendum was an example of a growing trend in EU-related votes: a great many voters are becoming complacent and apathetic toward a distant and complex EU that they do not understand. They become resigned to their lack of a voice, and give up.
As was the case after the Danish rejection of Maastricht in
