What If the British Vote No?

Charles Grant

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2005

Summary:  If ratified, the new EU constitution will change the way the union works. It cannot take effect unless approved by all 25 members, but in only one country -- the United Kingdom -- do polls show that a majority oppose the document. Still, a rejection there would throw Europe into a constitutional crisis. And it could ultimately harm transatlantic relations as well.

Charles Grant is Director of the Centre for European Reform in London and the author of What Happens If Britain Votes No? Ten Ways Out of a European Constitutional Crisis.

EU CONSTITUTION AT STAKE

In June 2004, the member states of the European Union concluded the negotiation of a treaty that, if ratified, would establish a European constitution that would make substantive changes to the way the union works. For the first time, an individual would be appointed president of the European Council, overseeing the regular summits of the heads of government of the EU nations and their foreign ministers. The EU would itself have a foreign minister. The amended rules on majority voting would allow a measure to pass if 55 percent of the member states were in favor, so long as they represented 65 percent of the EU's population. And the EU would gain new powers in justice and home affairs, requiring cooperation among interior ministries on immigration, asylum, crime, and justice.

The governments of all 25 countries have signed the treaty, but it cannot take effect unless ratified by each member state, through parliamentary vote or referendum. Ten EU countries have chosen to hold referendums. In February, the Spanish voted 77 percent in favor. A similar margin of victory is expected in Portugal and Luxembourg. Approval is less certain in the forthcoming French, Dutch, Polish, Danish, Irish, and Czech referendums, although opinion polls point to a positive result in all those countries. Only in the United Kingdom do the polls suggest that a majority will vote no. But that vote alone would throw the EU into a constitutional crisis.

Any initiative to salvage the constitutional treaty at that point would face huge political and legal obstacles. Some member states would probably try to push ahead and exclude the United Kingdom from the EU. Alternatively, France and Germany might seek to establish a "hard core" of states committed to a closer union, a new organization that would coexist within the broader EU. More plausibly, however, sets of ambitious countries might set up several different vanguard groups to facilitate closer cooperation in particular policy areas. Thus, Europe would have not a hard core but a "messy core": it would not be tightly organized, and the various groups would not all consist of the same members. In the long run, the countries that took part in all these groups would emerge as the EU's leadership.

Such a development would not bode well for either the EU's future or transatlantic relations. If a messy core emerged within the EU, the United Kingdom and other U.S. allies, such as Poland, would likely wind up outside of it. Europe would spend several years trying to sort out its institutions, rather than cope with the many security, economic, and environmental challenges that it faces. The EU would stop enlarging. And its chances of pressing ahead with economic reform or developing a coherent foreign policy would diminish dramatically.

LIVING ON THE EDGE

People from other countries are often puzzled by the fervor of the United Kingdom's hostility to the EU, or its "Euroskepticism." Ever since the British joined what is now called the European Union, in 1973, their relationship with that club has been troubled. For almost the entire period, one of the country's two main political parties has supported either loosening ties to the union or breaking them altogether. Although the Conservative Party took the United Kingdom into the union, its internal arguments over European policy destroyed the government of Margaret Thatcher, weakened that of John Major, and contributed to the party's general election defeats in 1997 and 2001. The Conservative Party now wants to "renegotiate" the terms of the United Kingdom's membership, while some of its leaders advocate outright withdrawal. Meanwhile, the current, pro-European position of the Labour Party, which abandoned its policy of quitting the EU in the mid-1980s, is unpopular. Labour will probably win the general election expected in May 2005 but lose the constitutional referendum planned for mid-2006. Such a defeat would destroy its credibility as a governing party.

Opinion polls show that, if given the choice, around four out of ten Britons would vote to leave the EU and that an overwhelming majority oppose the constitutional treaty. Such attitudes are deeply rooted in U.K. history, geography, and economics. Being an island on the edge of Europe, the United Kingdom has for the past 400 years developed close ties to other continents. Winston Churchill once said to Charles de Gaulle, "When I have to choose between you and Roosevelt, you should know that I will always choose Roosevelt. And when I have to choose between Europe and the wide open seas, you should know that I will always choose the wide open seas." World War II still shapes the way many Britons view their country and its relationship with the continent. The British had a more glorious war than most other Europeans, and their newspapers and television programs seldom let them forget it.

Recent economic success has also reinforced a sense of self-sufficiency among the British. For the past dozen years, the U.K. economy has outperformed those of France, Germany, and Italy. The United Kingdom's economic growth rate has been about one percentage point higher than those of France, Germany, and Italy, while its unemployment rate is half theirs. Unlike those three countries, the United Kingdom opted out of the euro, the European currency launched in 1999, and apparently has prospered by keeping the pound.