Raoul-Marc Jennar, one of the main scholars committed to the debate on the European Constitutional Treaty project, will vote "no" in the French referendum. When the essential is at stake, one must know how to resist - he writes. He considers that this text is not accessible to the citizen, which wrecks the initial purpose of the European Union; that it professes a neo-liberal doctrine, denies the European values, and also, that changing it will be really difficult.
1- One must oppose this treaty, which is given the force of a Constitution, because a Constitution is a short, accurate text accessible to the majority.
We are asked to say "yes" to a text with 448 articles, the real scope of which is incomprehensible without reading the 440 pages plus its annexes. We are asked to say "yes" to a confused text, which does not define a number of concepts such as “service of general economic interest” and in which certain articles are contradictory; a text that does not simplify the existing treaties or the existing institutions. We are finally asked to say "yes" to such an intricate text that is often beyond our ken! How can we say "yes" to what is not understood?
2. This treaty is unacceptable because it smashes what was for almost 50 years the underlying principle and the driving force of the European construction: harmonization.
The European hope is first of all a hope of equality for all the peoples: equality as far as the standard of living is concerned, equality of opportunities. This treaty neglects harmonization to favor competition since harmonization will depend hereinafter on marketing rules and not on the mutual will of the member states (art. 209)
3. This treaty is unacceptable because it is not a Constitution but a neo-liberal catechism.
Its text lessens the essential functions of the States into security functions (art. 5). Its text subordinates all social policies and environment related policies to marketing rules - to a market economy that no longer is the standard market economy which was run since Liberation and which is compatible with a strong level of social protection, but a market economy that will respond to the WTO rules, a market economy where “competition is free and not faked” (art. 3). This Constitution establishes the principle according to which “all powers stem from money”.
4. What characterizes “this treaty that sets up a Constitution for Europe” denies the values born in Europe:
Laicism was born in Europe.
The Constitution does not consecrate it and decides instead to acknowledge and subsidize worship. It allows the expression of religious opinions in public places and facilities.
It was in Europe where the principle was eventually imposed - and at what price! - that “all powers come from the people”.
This founding principle of democracy is neither registered nor applied in this Constitution kind of Treaty.
It was in Europe that the main characteristics of democracy were established: separation of powers and control of the power by parliament.
The text we are asked to approve, organizes a confusion of powers between both the Executive and Legislative powers and enshrines in the constitution what has been called from almost 50 years ago “the European Democratic Deficit”, that is, the Commission (whose composition is not dependant on universal suffrage) should keep the monopoly of all initiatives and the supreme institution of the European decision - the Council of Ministers - should not have to inform anybody about their political decisions, neither to us nor to those we have elected to represent us in National Parliaments or in the European Parliament.
It was in Europe where, at the expense of extremely hard political and social struggles, the collective rights were finally imposed - the social rights that organize the society as a society based on freedom.
The rights that the Constitution and the French law established - and which are also manifested in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, essentially drawn by the Europeans - i.e., the right to education, the right to health, the right to culture, the right to assistance (such as housing, the basic necessities of life, jobs, minimum salary, unemployment compensation, retirement) do not appear in the text we are asked to accept. Except for the right to education, not other rights are mentioned in that spurious Constitution, which is limited to grant us “the right to work” or hardly goes beyond “recognizing and respecting” what exists but without adopting it.
It was in Europe where public services were devised - tools that enable local, regional and national public authorities to bring within everybody’s reach those services which all have a right to.
The Constitution they want to impose on us is unaware of the concept ‘service’ as a collective right implementation process. It is unaware of public services, which cannot be submitted to profitability rules, and it refers only to general interest financial services under the rules of competition and the logic of profitability.
Finally, it was in Europe where the conception of a world order was materialized rather based on the force of the right than on the right of the force.
The Constitution they want to impose on us submits Europe’s foreign policy and defense to NATO, which is clearly said to be “the base of collective defense and the authority for its implementation.”
Who controls NATO ultimately?
The President of the United States of America.
5. In conclusion, that Constitution is unacceptable because we cannot change it.
Being now 25 nations, 27 in two years, with countries the governments of which, whether in the hands of right-wing or left-wing liberals, tell us they want unanimity so that not the least amendment be made in terms of fiscal or social matters, or in relation to the environment; with countries which consider that the concessions made to enter the European Union represent the utmost effort of one generation: the unanimity rule - the only one in the world -, they will try to impose that Constitution not only on us but also on our children and grandchildren.
Let us recall Mirabeau’s warning: «men spend half their lives forging their chains and the other half complaining of having to bear them ». To accept that Constitution is to give in and to hand over the future generations. It is to accept the chains that our ancestors once broke.
To reject this text is to make things come back to normal. The refusal of that Constitution is not the end of Europe. There will be no void or chaos. The 1957 Rome Treaty, amended in successive treaties still remains there. This text is not Europe, it’s only a bad text with a vision of Europe having nothing to do with Europe.
We are neither bankers nor businessmen. We are neither technocrats nor politicians. We are simply the people. To reject the Constitution proposed is to have the governments and parliamentarians know that we want a European Europe where solidarity be organized with freedom, where equality prevail respecting diversity, where man can live in harmony with nature, where the relationships with other peoples definitively break all forms of neocolonialism and imperialism.
We are before the most important decision we will ever have had to make since 1945: resign or resist. When the essential thing is at risk, one must know how to say "NO".
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