After the Referenda

• Published date: 01 January 2006
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0386.2006.00302.x
• Author: Gráinne De Búrca
• Date: 01 January 2006

After the Referenda

Gráinne de Búrca*

Did the negative results of the French and Dutch referenda on the treaty establishing

a European Constitution indicate or precipitate a political crisis within the European

Union? On one account, the answer is no. While this particular initiative may have

failed, business goes on as usual within the Commission, Council, Parliament, and else-

where in the EU machinery. New policies continue to be generated, laws are passed,

the 25 Member States carry on cooperating on a daily basis, and the existing legal and

political structures continue to operate as they have. Given that a documentary con-

stitution was not necessary in any immediate or practical sense, the failure to enact this

particular text may have bruised some political egos, relegated to the back-burner a

number of interesting reforms, and disappointed those who promoted its drafting, but

it did not cause anything that could be termed a crisis.

On another account, however, the rejection by the French and Dutch populations of

the constitutional text was in itself a momentous political event in the EU’s history,

and one that has indeed heralded a crisis of sorts, even if the absence of immediate

catastrophic consequences suggests a lack of the sense of acuteness implied by the term

‘crisis’. For the negative consequences of the referenda, even if they are slow to fully

unfold, and even if they make themselves felt only over time, amount to a significant

blow for the process of integration pursued to date by the EU, and call for serious

reflection on its goals and its governance.

In the period since the referenda took place, a number of explanations for the neg-

ative results have put forward by academic scholars and commentators who are broadly

supportive of the European Union project. One is the argument that the vote had little

to do with the content of the document at issue, and so was not a vote on a constitution

for the EU: instead it was a vote about unrelated issues such as Turkey’s accession, or

the recent enlargement, or a fear of immigration, or current economic conditions. A

second is the claim that the votes were really votes on domestic rather than European

issues, and were taken as an opportunity to punish unpopular national politicians who

advocated an EU constitution. A third is the suggestion that there was a great deal of

public ignorance and lack of understanding of the issues at stake in the proposal to

adopt a Constitution, despite the lively public debates. A fourth is the argument that,

even where those voting took care to read the text of the proposed Constitution, they

frequently took objection to certain provisions of part III thereof, not realising that

these contain no innovation but simply reflect the provisions of the EC treaty which

have been in force for decades.

European Law Journal, Vol.12, No. 1, January 2006, pp. 6–8.

© 2006 The Author

Journal compilation © 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ,UK

and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

*Professor of Law, European University Institute, Florence and member of the Global Law Faculty, New

York University.