Non, Non and Thrice Non
Dear Kitty reports on Dutch reaction to the French EU constitution NO vote:
The Dutch Socialist Party, who advocate a No vote for wednesday in The Netherlands put a picture of fireworks on their site to celebrate the French victory.
“French TV says thousands of people go to the Bastille in Paris, the starting point of the 1789 French revolution. They celebrate the victory of the No vote.
An orator at the Bastille shouted: Down with [European Commissioner] Barroso! Down with Blair! Down with Raffarin [French Prime Minister, who may resign soon now due to his referendum defeat]!
Someone in the audience advised Dutch voters to vote no as well, as the people should decide, not the professional politicians.
Dutch Prime Minister Balkenende kept calling on Dutch voters to vote Yes. Suddenly, in anti French Dutch nationalist tones.
While, before the French no, he had kept saying The Netherlands as a small country should not isolate themselves from big countries like France who would probably say yes … What rank hypocrisy.
Yesterday, there was the Dunya music festival in Rotterdam. Dutch Government Minister Ms Agnes van Ardenne (ab)used the occasion for a Vote yes speech.
When Mr Willem Bos, chair of the Vote no committee, tried to say what counter arguments were, police arrested him and kept him in jail for over an hour. This says something about the quality of democracy which the Yes supporters want.
In his concession speech, French President Chirac, who had campaigned for a Yes vote, had to admit the French people had expressed themselves democratically.
French TV said that 56%, even more than the 55% of the exit poll, had voted No. 60% of Green Party voters had voted No, contrary to their party leaders.
There were No majorities all over France. With some exceptions, like Strassburg where many jobs depend on the European parliament: there, 62% voted Yes. Even this was a lot lower than the 72% Yes vote there for the Maastricht treaty referendum, narrowly won nationally by the Yes vote.”
How long before the Eurocrats get it into their thick, corrupt, nepotism-addled skulls? Europeans are in favour of Europe; we just don’t want the Europe they do, one modelled on the US free-trade-or-be- damned system, with zero democratic accountability ; a fortress Europe in which we all are numbered, listed and treated as nothing but tax-paying fodder for a political and financial elite.
I don’t think so. Go back and think again, and this time ask us what we want.
