The Euro weakened a little more against the dollar on Monday in Asian markets after France rejected the EU Constitution. While I disagree with their choice and the impact it could have in Europe, I like what their vote could do to the value of the euro!

It's only the first of the nos coming in...watch the Dutch in the not so ditant future.

I've read a bit of analysis of these issues, and it seems that the defeat of the EU constitution is more a manifestation of general discontent with the national leadership on the part of the Europeans - Chirac, etc - than it is an impugning of the constitution.

It is a shame that the voters chose to stick it to their leaders with this particular issue - it's not a bad constitution, and it would have been better if it had passed. But perhaps this will be a wake-up call to the politicians that they need to get in touch with their constituents or risk losing office themselves.

As far as the effect on the Euro - while this is probably the wrong reason for the Euro to go down - I'd much rather it be due to positive new from the US than negative news out of Europe - at this point I think all current or would-be expats will gladly take what they can get!

I think a lot of Europeans consider it a terrible constitution! Rightly or wrongly, they equate "liberalisation of economy" to a loss of jobs to cheaper labour in central and eastern European countries. When you have high unemployment in France (and official recession in Italy), people are bound to worry about the impact of such liberal (Anglo-Saxon) policies.

The Dutch seem worried that their representation in the EU will be watered down if Turkey gets in. 17 million Dutch, but 80 million Turks - a fear that the nationalist parties are playing on.

Socialist never seem to get it. I saw the left party in France Cheering at the rejection of the Constitution

Life is better in countries that have free markets. Taking a long view, countries with freer economies have less poverty, more wealth, more opportunity, and more social freedom. If you can find a better way to live, please let me know.

In my view, enthusiasts for government are like girls who get their hearts broken time after time. They fantasize about Mr. Perfect, with all the right values, the right ideas. All they have to do is give themselves up to him completely. So they fashion this position of incredible power and dominance, cross their fingers, try to bag the right guy, and then - whoever they got - they give it up. If they get Jack Kennedy maybe for a few seconds they can ignore the many imperfections and experience some moment of orgasmic governance (isn't that how The West Wing gets its viewership? A sort of political porn for liberals). But a little later they get Nixon or a Bush.
Presently, while W is doing his thing to the country, these heartbreak gals close their eyes and fantasize about Barack Obama. Will the knight in shining armor ever fulfill their many needs? If, in romantic life, expecting one man (one party, one federal government) to fulfil every need is a recipe for disappointment, discord and disaster, then in political life even more so.

My point is, if your political fantasy involves complete submission then you cannot possibly be happy with anything short of an infinitely visionary, wise, charismatic leadership. You'll spend your life in serial disappointment, your heart broken even when "your guy" wins. But if on the other hand you have in mind a very limited role for government, if you don't expect it to be your everything, then an ordinary competent manager will do for the most part. If we get visionaries, that's a wonderful plus. But visionaries with pure hearts don't always make it to the top job, and with limited government it isn't a tragedy if we get leaders with feet of lead.
When society is run by people, with government playing a minor role, the visionaries will likely play a far larger role in human affairs, in or out of government.

Cilento, just for your information: while the PCF was solidly for the "Non", the PSF party was quite evenly split, probably with a slight predominance of leaders being in favor of the EU constitution. In any case, everybody don't forget that in France the EU constitution referendum campaign was mainly played thinking of the inner politics: most people who voted "Non" did so not because they are against the EU constitution as well as to give the parliamentary majority and government a clear sign of not being much favored by the voters anymore. It was a referendum on inner politics and economics even more than on EU constitution.

Thank You Alice

I saw a post on an earlier thread and combine that with my experiences in Southern ITaly. Where SOutehrners tend to be more to the left than the northerners ( The opposite in the US by the way) They say they want less poverty better jobs, cleaner air... There should be beter jobs, there shoudlbe better roads etc..

very few people would disagree with the "shoulds". I diagree with the left on the "hows".

Let me offer you a classic example of the "what is seen and what is not seen" paradigm (a la Bastiat).

Let's say we cut all welfare payments off completely tomorrow. I'm not suggesting doing that. I've long agreed with Miltie Friedman that 5-10 years is an appropriate period for transitions. But for argument's sake, let's say we cut it off cold.

What is seen is that some children die, or end up living in filth, or on the street. That would make the headlines and provoke outrage. Those children have names and faces.

(USA)

Let's look at what is unseen. Right now there are girls who look at girls around them and follow by example. Want to move out of home? Want your own place? Have a baby. I'm not being cynical, I work every day with girls and women who have made *conscious* decisions along these lines, and have articulated them to me. Most people think the idea of moving out of home and setting your own routines is cool. In welfare-driven communities, that's how you move out of home. As a male, you can move out of home by getting one or more girls pregnant, then shuttling between their apartments. So, we get a crop of underage baby-mommas (as termed in my neighborhood). Sometimes the big-mommas (grandmothers) take on the diapers. Sometimes the baby-mommas do a decent job. Quite a few of them don't. Quite a few who have dropped out from school and have little to do with their day except diapers and sex end up in a mess. It may be drugs, or acting out, or some other emotional mess.
And the kids end up without the essentials mentioned: food, health, clothing and shelter, [security], or a decent upbringing/education.

That's the unseen cost of welfare. What kills more children?

Put simply, put very very simply, the classic mistake of most liberal programs is to appreciate the benefits without examining or weighing up the costs. There are costs to welfare which go far beyond the fiscal costs.

A final cost to welfare programs, and government stepping in to guarantee the "shoulds" mentioned, is that government simply has to take on a deeply controlling parental role. My preferred vision of the government's responsibility to act "in loco parentis" is that a major burden of proof must be met before force is initiated. Bruises and broken bones should indeed prompt investigations and removal of children from their parents'
homes. However, when you extend the range of government concerns so much further, to cover food choice, anti-depressents, choice of discipline, etc.
etc. you produce another unintended consequence: when you take responsibility away from people, you create irresponsible people. Generally when a parent is doing a poor job of looking after their children in a society that DOESN'T have welfare, the child doesn't die, because several other things occur along the way. The grandparents notice. The neighborhood notices. The parents are exposed to censure, or people may step in to help them change. All of these things are based upon individual relations. In a society driven by welfare economics however, there is the assumption that the government will control and fix everything. It produces tremendous passivity. Grandparents and neighbors, as well as parents themselves (!) relinquish the intimate involvement and "quality-control". If you don't believe this, consider a 15 year-old girl in India planning to get knocked up with some guy she's known for a month. Well, in India she'd probably end up dead. But putting aside those local mores for a second, my real point is that everyone around her would step in to stop this happnening. They step in long before it happens. They chaperone her on the streets. They monitor all the little behaviors we call flirting. They drum in messages about behavior with boys which falls far short of sex. Why??? Because without welfare a fifteen year-old girl having a baby with a random young man will either create a massive drain on the family (dependent mother and child) or a starving mother and child. So, the liberal response to this is to remove the consequences. In the short term, we see the benefits. That particular mother and child, don't starve. They get nice food and shelter. But move beyond "what is seen" . What is unseen is the next girl, who is watching.
Worse than that, it's the neighbors, and extended family. Now that young girls getting pregnant isn't any big deal, they don't take the same care, they don't intervene and exert pressure.

All of which is a long winded explanation of something that is shockingly familiar to me in my ghetto line of work. Mothers who ambivalently or even happily watch as daughter after daughter knowingly turns herself into a welfare mother. And in my humble opinion, this causes more net death of babies than if we had no welfare at all. It causes more children without food or shelter or security or hope. So yes, I care about those things, but I have profoundly different ideas on how to ensure them. I believe in individuals, families and communities, where the left look first to government.

YOur whole reasoning is wrong. Actually the two main souces of votes for the right is the south and the northeast. While it is true that many southern regions turned left in the last regional votes, it is also true that this is a global Italian trend. Having said this, I refuse to be baited to your provocation for two reasons: in first place because this thread ias abvout the French referendum, so if you want to talk about French politics you are welcome to do so, possibly with someone who hyas a little more in depth knowledge of the French politis than the one I can distill from my far too occasional reading of the French press; secondly because I am a communist, and as I communist I feel quite above provocations

Then my reasoning for where the lweft comes from is wrong

But I have serious doubts that my experiences with left policy is wrong

I do not know much abnout French Politics but for the Frenchmen who sits next to me at work SO I cannot speak intelegently about French polictics.

There was no provovation I simpliy stated that leftist policies from my epxeriences have failed and I could provide several examples of this

I would also suggest that your examples are wrong, based upon my experiences in India.

I have not been to india but have consulted with some the the Indians here where I Work

Sex, never mind pregnancy is prohibited before mariage. A pregant teenager is the worst of all cases

According to them

The point is and was leftist policies failure to consider the cost and end up cuasing more damage

I can see where this thread is going, and it's nowhere good. These are obviously issues that we all have different opinions on, but I doubt that anyone's mind is going to be changed by arguing over them on this forum, and that's not the purpose of the forum or this particular thread in the first place. So I personally will not engage in that line of discussion either; I'm going to try to gently steer the conversation back to its original purpose

So, in regards to the French referendum - the ironic part of the entire situation is that the parts of the constitution that set out free-market policies (Part Three) aren't really much different than the policies that are already in place. Those segments of the treaty are copied almost word-for-word from the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which has been in effect for decades; apparently 55 percent of the French people are unaware of that fact. The constitution was not a drastic change in the structure of the Union; it would have made moderate reforms to the current system, making it a moderately more efficient and stronger union.

In any case, the whole idea of the EU is to unify the economies of the European countries, allowing them more leverage and strength that they would have had alone, and a big part of a unified economy is free movement of people and good inside that economy. The French have always been solidly pro-EU, so why the sudden change in heart? They can't have it both ways. Either they want a unified, free Europe or they don't. The economic principles of it are essential.

Anyway, do any of the Europeans here think the constitution still has a chance?

Well Michael, as an European I have to answer "Yes!" to that question. Not that anyone cares what I think anyway, I voted "Yes!" to EMU as well but that didn't help...

Here we haven't got the opportunity to vote about the constitution, mainly because the government predicted that a votation would lead to a no and the government really wants to say yes to the constitution.

The Swedish no (among the people, officially we have already approved of the constitution) is based on totally different grounds than the French though. Here, many people are still very much against the whole European Union, and they proclaim that we should revoke our membership, they voted no to EMU and would most probably vote no to the constitution. One thing the Swedish people is really good at is conservatism!

In France (from what the newspapers here report) the no is not a no to EU, but a no against the constitution because it is too vague and leaves too much room for interpretations which can be very different from one country to the other.

I really don't think this is a question of left and right. Remember also that what is left in one country might be considered right in another country, it is a very relative concept.

oh but I forgot to explain why I say yes to Michael's question. Silly girl!
Ok, here we go. I say yes, I still think the constitution stands a chance, but it probably has to be a little modified, the principles must be clearer and there must be less room for interpretation.

BUT. As usual, I really don't know a lot about politics, so I could be wrong.

I think the constitution is doomed. As I said before, people worried about their jobs, social rights and welfare (rights that they have long fought to win - and to keep) believe that widening the EU and taking away individual countries' vetoes will make their lives worse. When people in France are already suffering over 10% unemployment, and have had painful welfare and pension reforms, they are not likely to vote for something that promises more of the same. I agree that the referendum is as much about their dissatisfaction with their own government as it is with the EU. But, there is a very real fear.

I'm a "good" European - I have lived in Europe for years, and speak two European languages fluently, and a third badly. But I would probably vote "no" to a constitution that paves the way for accelerated expansion of the EU - without consultation with people already living in the EU. I feel that things are moving too quickly, and that people are not ready for further upheaval when their national economies are doing so badly.

I enjoy hearing people's thoughts on subjects like this, and I learn a lot from them. (Maybe Cristina will see that we are civil enough to have a whole new category devoted exclusively to politics. Isn't that also a part of understanding Italy's culture and people?)

Anyway, it's beginning to seem to me that there are lots of good reasons for the French to have voted "no." How can you vote for more change with confidence when unification to date hasn't delivered great results in most of the larger western european countries: high unemployment, stagnant economies that can't seem to insure future funding for incredibly generous social programs, ethnic groups are not only growing, but increasingly unpredictable, etc. Blair, Schroeder, Chirac and Bersusconi all have suffered political defeats of one sort or another, a reflection of general discontent. On top of all this, I've read that the EU constitution was written by bureaucrats, without much input from european citizens or even from their directly elected officials. (I've read also that the document is hard to understand, even if someone took the time to read it.) This doesn't sound very democratic -- so maybe the "no" vote could force more open debate and a more representative process. Then future votes (yes or no) be more meaningful.

Very well put Joe. The EU is the biggest thing...well, since 1776.
It's going to take a lot to bring all of these countries together: All of their good and all of their bad. And they're constantly changing as well.

And people don't want to be treated like sheep. The voters sent the right message to the beaurocrats.

I would like to see the EU come to shape. But I am glad to see the people of France excersize their rights. They've got to live with the results. At least the voters of France aren't led by their noses like some other places for a vote.

I think that the no in France - as well as in many other European countries - is a no to the constitution as it is, not a no to a constitution.

And, as Joe said, the constitution is hard to understand, and I doubt that many people openheartedly say yes to something they don't understand.
Personally I think that the idea of a constitution is good and probably necessary too in the future.

Allisa, sorry to say so, but since 1776 there have been quite a few big things: the French Revolution, the birth of a certain idea of laicism applied to politics, the femminism, the socialism, the industral revolution... Even liberism and liberalism (I am not referring to the "liberals" in the modern sense; I am talking about the political theories that were born of the economical theories of liberism!).
EU could have been a big thing if, and this dates back to the 1960's, the whole thing had been played along more political lines. Instead, our leaders decided to play it in purely economical terms. True, EU's first bud was the old CECA, which was a purely economical instrument, but later on many more more purely political organizations were born: European Council, OSCE... We may count in even NATO, although I don't much care for it. Yet, the old EEC took preminency, and that was a purely economical structure.
When EEC returned to politics, becoming the UE, its structured was already too biased towards economics. The Constitution is IMHO, a last attempt to go back to politics, but it was a quite desperate and clumsy attempt. The constitution itself will not heighten the "European" feelings of people, we will not start feeling more european just because now the EU has a constitution, especially one that superposes to the national constitutions of the member states (yes, I know, the US have a national constitution, thna each state has its own, but here the difference is played by the genesis of the whole thing).
I strongly believe that the EU should start to play a more incisive political role in the international playground. We should start to configure ourselves as a second "superpower", to act as both an equal level partner and a competitior to the US I am not wishing that the situation evolves to a new cold war, obviously, I'd rather have something more peaceful! I just think that the world needs more than one superpower to be balanced: if the only one was the EU I would hope for the US or someone else (UA, Arab League, ASEAN, Conosur, the Anatrtic coalition, SOMEONE, PLEASE!) to take up that role. To achieve this goal the EU should start to act politically as a unity, leaving less room for each state in the International field; and this means much more than writing down a constitution.

My French friend who lives in London was so disapointed by the the French rejection of the constitution that he wants to go into exile in the UK, and never go back to France! But then I reminded him of his love of quiche and crepes, and he had second thoughts! haha!

As far as the constitution, anything that starts with:

quote:

HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF THE BELGIANS, THE PRESIDENT OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC, HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN OF DENMARK, THE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY, THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF ESTONIA, THE PRESIDENT OF THE HELLENIC REPUBLIC, HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF SPAIN, THE PRESIDENT OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC, THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, THE PRESIDENT OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLIC, THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS, THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF LATVIA, THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF LITHUANIA, HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE GRAND DUKE OF LUXEMBOURG, THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF HUNGARY, THE PRESIDENT OF MALTA, HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN OF THE NETHERLANDS, THE FEDERAL PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF AUSTRIA, THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF POLAND, THE PRESIDENT OF THE PORTUGUESE REPUBLIC, THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA, THE PRESIDENT OF THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC, THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF FINLAND, THE GOVERNMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF SWEDEN, HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND,

Wow, what ever happened to we the people? Now I do understand a united eurozone economy, and it makes sence to have some form of common laws but I do hope this spells the end of a federalist system in Europe. United but not ruled over.

To read the constitution for yourself goto:
http://europa.eu.int/constitution/index_en.htm


On a lighter note, the summer thunderstorms have hit Tuscany. I love the perfume of the afternoon shower. Mix that with the rumble of thunder and I tremble with ecstacy.

We cannot discuss this here

proof would be the stanadard iof living in poland and ukraine as compared to western europe


The goal of equal standard of living starts to fall apart the second you realize people have different preferences. Some people think a soft bed is very important. Some people think books are very important. Some think highly developed medical care, others music lessons, others tasty food, still others fancy sports. There's no way to cater to these different needs under socialism. To make people equal you'd have to give everyone 1/5 of a comfy bed, 1/5 a great library, 1/5 good medical care, etc. etc. No-ones preferences (or "needs") are met. Under such a system, in fact people would trade the things they didn't really want (cushy bed, library) for what they did want (sports stuff). Such trades would instantly make everyone MORE well off, because they'd give up things they didn't really want for things they wanted very much. Then after many trades, it would become clear that while everyone was better off, some were more better off than others. You'd have inequality. But you'd also have greater wellbeing. You'd have moved from "equal misery for all" under socialism to "unequal sharing of the blessings"
under capitalism. And to prevent it, quoting Nozick, you'd have to ban "capitalist acts between consenting adults", which gets to the heart of why socialist societies inevitably become authoritarian.