eurovision a barometer of european inter-relations

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050516/ ... 16-13.html

Heh, that's pretty interesting.

Are we all ready to say bye to the constitution? After France the Netherlands voted with about 63% against the constitution in a 62% turnout.

Bah...this sucks. The worst thing is that it even isn't a real consitution, so many ppl wrongly think that it is some sort of supranational imposing of laws.

Bye bye more executive power to the EU. I'm sure the US and China will feel very scared next time belgium or holland threaten them with economic embargos.

This is why you never have to let the people decide in a referendum, cos half of them don't know wtf the issue really is (not adressing you here, Arathorn and BJ )about.

It's like freaking California....

->referundum 1: should there be more money for schools? -answer clear yes
->referundum 2: should the state invest in (insert lofty goal) -answer clear yes
->referendum 3: should taxes be raised? -answer clear no


Which makes clear that most ppl don't have a clue about how these things are intertwined, or don't try to see it anyway. It's all about long term advantages vs. short term disadvantages.

Ox, you're talking shit. Nothing changed in the EU. The EU has created EU-wide embargo's before and can (and will) still do that.

Maybe Belgians are too defeatist... they think they're too small to do anything so they'll happily let their bigger neighbours decide.

I'm not talking shit..obviously this doesn't mean that the EU will disintegrate on the spot, but refusing more executive power isn't a good sign for the future of the EU, imho.

And who can argue with my statement that the ppl are dumb, and therefore referenda suck? Cos the people are dumb. And sheep.

And defeatist...not quite. belgium was one of the only countries that publicly disagreed with the war in Iraq, not the sign of a small nation happily letting large countries do their thing I reckon.

I just think that there can't be enough cooperation between the core nations of the EU, and in that regard the rejection of the 'constitution' (what a poor choice of name btw, they just should have named it a treaty or something) is a bad thing. Sure, they'll tweak this and that but knowing the Eu that'll be with a serious delay.

I just don't see what the problem with the EU is; you might not connect the constitution to the EU at large, but a lot of ppl do. And in the end its benefits are far greater than its problems.

There are a lot of ppl who seem to fear that we're going to become a sort of United States of Europe, but that's ludicrous...our cultural backgrounds are far too diverse to become such a supernation.

Why isn't it a good sign? Untill now, the EU has been ruled by a bunch of people who have no idea about public opinion. If anything can kill the EU, it's the people not caring anymore. There is a vote for the EU paliament, but what if nobody turns out to vote? Sure, the show will go on, but will the EU be taken seriously? The EU is not a very democratic institution, but with a voting turnout of less then 30%, it will be a laughing stock. How far are we from that barrier?
My prediction of the future is that the EU will make a step on the place (is that an English proverb?). It will not desintegrate, it will not go backwards, but it will review itself and wait untill it's views are more accepted untill it will continue to grow and influence our lives.
The people are dumb, and I don't like referenda. The only reason I liked this referendum is because I was against the constitution, and so were the people. You can call me a hypocrite, but that's politics.

Who were amongst the other countries that were against the war in Iraq? France and Germany. Two big Belgian neigbours.

I see no problem with the EU, I love it, but not the way it's going right now. Right now it's dragging itself into the abbys. It's getting bigger and bigger, and in the meantime it doesn't dare to tackle it's bigger problems, like the unsustainable farm subsidies, the rediculous fact that the paliament has to have a conference in Strassbourg from time to time (that alone costs millions), and the huge discount the UK gets from it's contribution every year. It doesn't change because politicians are afraid to annoy their foreign counterparts, so instead they focus on something like enlargement, just to have something to do.
If they continue on this way, the whole thing will blow up in their face, and it won't be pretty.

Arathorn has some good points here, the last thing i want is blowing up the EU, but there are indeed some things that maybe need attention first.

Like the discount for the UK, i don't think it's very logical that one country pays less than the others. Of course, solving this issue will be hard, since UK will not be willing to give this advantage away so easily.

But since i have absolutely no faith in politicians, i'm afraid they won't learn many lessons from these events. "The ratification process will go on" is all they say, and then we'll see what happens. To me that's nonsense, it's clear that people have given a signal that they want something to change, no need waiting another year and a half before starting to think what to do.

I wonder why we don't get to vote ourselves here in belgium? I'm not following it that much, i thought that instead there would be an information campaign, and the parlament will vote (mm wonder what they will vote .. ). Haven't seen much about the information though, maybe it's still coming? Ox?

There won't be a referendum over here afaik...so no voting. Like anyone would bother voting when they're not obliged in Belgium anyway.

As far as the discussion goes...it's obvious that my pov is different from that of Arathorn and you, but hey. It's not like I love politicians, either. Bottom line for me is that this 'constitution' has been rejected for the wrong reasons; even if those reasons are valid in regard of other issues.

And the people, pff...they don't want growth. Well, they do, but the time is gone when the governement told them that growth was secured if they did their job and were nice to eachother, and they believed it just like that. So now you have a whole lot of people who are suspicious of the establishment -which is understandable- and consequently disregard évery initiative taken by the government(s). People in our part of the world don't really want much to change, simply because this is the best part of the world to live in...so they're afraid of growth and how it will affect them. Growth is change, and change has implications. Those implications aren't always very positive, but i think we all agree that growth is the only way to go: passiveness is lethal to any society. (not to myself ) Of course, you could argue about the nuances of such growth, but I stell feel this rejection is a missed chance.


Btw Arathorn, I don't see how France and Germany being against the war in Iraq too proves Belgium's following nature...after all, just about all of the rest of the western world was and is kissing the USA's ass no matter their policies. Including Holland. hehehehe

Just for the record, i do think that voting 'No' isn't a good thing.
The referendum was about 'X' while lots of people voted against because of 'Y', now you get the wrong impression that 'X' just sucks. So as you say, it got rejected for the wrong reasons.

I agree on the growth part, standing still is the same as decrease (decline, whatever, you know what i mean). As far as the EU concerns, i think they took this growing took a bit wrong, the acceptance and candidacy of numerous countries seems a bit 'rushed' to me.
First get things to work properly, then start thinking about expansion.

Standing still may be the same as a decline, but if you charge headlessly in a direction like the EU has been doing the past years, you might as well run downhill. Better stop and look around from time to time to look wether you're still heading the right direction.
And I can tell you now that with farm subsidies there won't be any growth in the future, and the more agriculture-heavy countries we accept in the EU the harder it will become to abolish them (I'm afraid it's already impossible).