Question 3
Question
The people never decide on Europe but always on domestic issues. This is the reason why the EU Constitution was rejected in France. Not because the people said no to Europe but wanted to punish Chirac. So what is the sense of a referendum?
Answer
According to this question, some people are afraid of ‘linking’: issues which have nothing to do with the European treaty are ‘linked’ to it by the voters. However, the problem of linking is obviously much bigger in the representative election system, where hundreds of issues are linked in one big melting pot to lead to one ‘yes’ to one political party. In a referendum system, it is possible to isolate specific issues and vote only on them. Those who are critical of linking, should advocate more direct democracy. For example, if we don’t want the introduction of the Euro or EU membership of Turkey to play a role in a debate about a European treaty (in which both topics are by the way arranged), there should be at least the possibility of separate referendums about them.
Moreover, two big researches in the Netherlands (one by the government, one by a well known polling agency) on the European Constitution referendum campaign have established that the constitutional structure of Europe – such as the amount of power the EU would receive, how the big countries relate to the little and whether the EU was in need of a constitution – were indeed the prime reasons for voting yes or no. Other reasons have played a role but a limited one.
The answer was provided by Arjen Nijeboer, co-author of the book "Direct Democracy - Facts and arguments about the introduction of initiative & referendum" which you can download in DA, DE, EN, FR, NE, SK language here
Go Back
© Democracy International www.democracy-international.org