Winning the referendum

It will be no surprise to readers of this column that Jacques Chirac opted for a referendum on the ratification of the European Constitution. For the past two years, not only have I campaigned for the use of that most democratic procedure but I have always predicted that it will be politically impossible to avoid it.

Hitherto, the European Union has been founded on treaties negotiated by diplomats and decided by governments. In contrast, the Constitution was drawn up by elected people’s representatives in order to unite the citizens themselves and not just their leaders. That democratic change requires the explicit assent of citizens. Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac are to be congratulated on the courage they have shown in taking this political risk, which is as great as the issue at stake.

There is indeed quite a risk. A referendum is an extremely delicate matter and depending on how it is used it can be a highly democratic or a highly ambiguous procedure. To tell the truth, only the Swiss and some American states, such as California, have been holding referendums long enough to know how to handle them. That does not mean that ‘yes’ votes always carry the day (in 40% of Swiss referendums, the ‘no’ camp has won), but at least citizens go to the ballot boxes to have their say on the question put to them. None of the 25 EU states has that kind of experience. Referendums are rare if not exceptional events and the electorate seizes the opportunity to express its discontent of the moment, which sometimes bears no direct relation to the question at issue. In France, Gaullist tradition means that referendums openly take on the form of plebiscites: presidents, for instance, use them to ask for a vote of confidence from the people who elected them. In 1969, General de Gaulle found he no longer enjoyed that confidence and took the only step that he could: immediate resignation. In 1992, in view of the first opinion polls, which were highly favourable, François Mitterrand was clearly seeking an opportunity to regain the political authority he had lost at home by putting the popular proposal for a European currency to the vote: of the 49% of Frenchmen and women who voted ‘no’ to the Maastricht Treaty, a good third at least were right-wingers who tended to be in favour of monetary union yet wanted to seize this unexpected chance to get rid of a president they disliked.

There is, of course, a risk that the same situation will recur in 2005, this time because of left-wing voters – and some centre and right voters who, as in 1969, will use this as a means to speed up the change of president they want to see, even if the successor comes from the party currently in the majority. And the same risk faces most other countries.

Placed in the same political situation, it is very much in the interest of all the governments to agree on a common ratification strategy. The best way to dissociate the European institutional issue from the issue of the national government would be to hold a referendum in all 25 countries on the same day. At the instigation of the Danish eurosceptic Hans-Peter Bonde and myself, from spring 2003 onwards a group of about 1000 Convention members campaigned for a referendum, as the most democratic and most European option. Some people objected that referendums did not exist in all EU countries. That argument is fairly meaningless: in every case a single law would be enough to organise a consultative referendum, on the understanding, obviously, that no government could override the results of the popular vote. Incidentally, countries that do not have a constitutional procedure or a tradition of referendums, such as Luxembourg and the Netherlands, have announced that they intend to set the example here.

If that ‘ideal’ option were not chosen, it would be essential jointly to draw up the overall timetable. The new Union members have an important part to play here. A year ago, they managed to adopt up a genuine common strategy for ratifying their treaties of accession to the Union, by asking those most in favour of ratification for their verdict first, in order to create a positive momentum. A timetable of that kind, underpinned by the fact that at least one group of countries chose to hold a referendum on the same date, could well give the right signals.

Another simple but very effective idea would be for those states holding a referendum to agree the wording of the question and even the explanatory notes.

Third recommendation: the debate on the Union’s borders must be resolved in clear terms. The French people, for one, would not hesitate to reject the prospect of a political Europe in which they had no control either over its identity or over its borders. Given the very rash promises made to Turkey, the only way to reassure our fellow citizens on this vital issue is for France to give a clear undertaking that it would put any new accession on which the people had political reservations to another referendum. Finally, in the case of France, the procedure itself may play an important part in guaranteeing that voters realise that this is a European referendum rather than a national plebiscite.

Both articles of the Constitution of the Fifth Republic on the holding of referendums (Articles 11 and 89) offer two options. Although the decision to hold a referendum is always up to the President of the Republic, a referendum can be proposed either by the government or by the parliament. Hitherto, presidents have preferred a government proposal, because that allowed them to maximise the impact of the ‘yes’ vote they were hoping for, to the political benefit of the executive. This time, a parliamentary proposal is categorically advisable, to ensure an honest vote and to promote the European cause. The fact that the President of the Republic announced his decision in principle on 14 July has no bearing on the procedure that will eventually be chosen. By the way, the President can build on the results of the consultations he held last spring: as far as I know, at the time all the party leaders decided they preferred a referendum – which surely means that none of them could then refuse to sign up to that procedure. Obviously that will not stop any of the party leaders from possibly campaigning for a ‘no’ vote, but it will be easier to dissociate the issue of Europe from the future of the executive power if that procedure is seen as a political ‘first night’ in the history of the Fifth Republic.

The clearer it becomes that this is a question of the future of Europe, the more chance there is that the ‘yes’ votes will carry the day. All the opinion polls, like the recent elections, show that at least two out of three Frenchmen and women support the European project. Conversely, the more the debate is brought down to a question of national government, the more the voters will be tempted to say ‘no’. At last spring’s elections, a majority of French decided to reject the government in power. Almost all our partners did the same at the same time. The referendum on Europe will be won, the plebiscite would be lost.

Alain Lamassoure, 7 September 2004