May 26, 2005
HEADS I WIN...TAILS YOU LOSE
Keep up the pressure for a No vote, Left warned (David Rennie, The Telegraph, May 26th, 2005)
Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg and holder of the rotating EU presidency, told Le Soir newspaper in Belgium that he would act swiftly on Sunday night if France voted No.He would appear with the head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, and demand that all 25 EU nations complete the process of ratifying the constitution, in referendums or parliamentary votes.
The treaty must officially be endorsed by all 25 member states.
But EU leaders appear to be focused on keeping the constitution alive after a possible French No so as to buy themselves more time for a political solution to the resulting crisis.
Mr Juncker said it was essential for the EU leadership to show a united front on Sunday night, and "maintain order in the process that will unfold the morning after".
"If it's a Yes, we will say 'on we go', and if it's a No we will say 'we continue'," he said.
Don’t they have civil wars over this kind of thing?
Posted by Peter Burnet at May 26, 2005 7:11 AMI guess the English have grown accustom to reading this stuff, but it would scare the hell out of me if I lived there.
Posted by: capt mike at May 26, 2005 7:35 AMWe're coming close to this kind of thing. We don't call these oligarchs "the EU elite," however. We call them judges. Just as the EU is anti-democratic (and how much more anti-democratic can you get than telling countries to keep voting till they get it right), so is judge made law anti-democratic.
What are they going to do? Swat each other with the newspaper? Declare war on all the member states? Throw croissants? Shred all their documents in protest?
The bureaucrats in Brussells may be entrenched and vengeful, but they are quite impotent in these matters, eh?
Besides, the Eastern Europeans could always ask Bush to bomb the place ("just tell everyone you got the wrong address"....).
BTW, the US is opening two bases in Romania. Very interesting.
Posted by: jim hamlen at May 26, 2005 10:36 AMThe Intrade odds on a French Yes Vote are sinking. As of this posting they have are 31.5/33.0 Until Yesterday they were in the low 40s.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at May 26, 2005 11:28 AM