Thoughts on the Dutch No Vote

A friend (American) in the Netherlands wrote me the following e-mail:

Sorry not to get back sooner on your political question.  My answer would

have been about the same before the Dutch referendum, not much has

changed it in the election.  I would have voted for it, but I don’t
have
Dutch voting rights.

Virtually all the Dutch parties, trade
unions and organizations
support the constitution.  They seem to think it
would take care of itself,
however, and did little to support it.

The
debate was shallow and ignored the constitution itself completely
until about
two days before the vote.  It was completely dominated by the
naysayers, who
demagogically empahsized people’s fears
of large, impersonal bureacracies,
loss of sovereignity, and the general
dissatisfaction of the voters.  There
were no significant actions for the
affirmative until two days before the
vote.  I kept thinking back
to the fantastic debates in the Federalist papers
about the adoption of
the American constituion while this was going
on!

The constitution itself seems uninspired.  I’ve only read 6-10 pp.
summaries,
and it’s a 250 pp document, which in itself is a problem.  It’s
hard to be
succinct, let alone inspiring, in a Roman law tradition. 

The constitution also seemed very limited to me.  It would have created

a position of secretary of foreign affairs, would have made the
commission
a bit more capable of action (by making it smaller and no longer
requiring
consensus in important decisions), and would have stregthened the
role of
the chair of the commission, a position which now rotates among the
heads of
state in a six-month rhythm.  But it would not have solved the
problems of
divisions over Iraq or the inability to act against the agression
of the
Serbs.  These were not issues in debates, only personal
reactions.

So it was a massive failure of leadership in a) drafting an uninspiring  document and b) filing to present a compelling vision of unified Europe to counter the economic fears and bigotry of the ‘no’ forces.  ANdre Glucksmann has a eimilar take in his essay "The victory of Euro-nihilism."