The French and Dutch rejection of the EU constitution means the end of the top-down route to European integration, writes Denis Staunton in Brussels.
Over dinner in Berlin this evening, two haunted figures will pick over the wreckage of Europe's constitutional treaty, seeking desperately to salvage something that could keep the European integration project on track and possibly save their political careers. Gerhard Schröder and Jacques Chirac will find scant cause for cheer as they consider this week's resounding No votes in France and the Netherlands and the disarray the referendums have caused at the top of European politics.
As the scale of the referendum defeats sank in among the European elites, it became clear that French and Dutch voters may have said No not only to the constitution but to the EU itself.
"We must acknowledge that many Europeans doubt that Europe is able to answer the urgent questions of the moment," Schröder said after the Dutch vote on Wednesday.
In fact, the referendums gave expression to a profound hostility many citizens feel towards the political elites at both national and European levels. Geert Wilders, a bouffant-coiffed, right-wing populist who featured prominently in the Dutch No campaign, summed up the message in his own crude way.
"The voters have stuck two fingers up to the elites in Brussels and the Hague," he crowed as the results came in.
The referendum campaigns in France and the Netherlands focused on different issues and exposed different concerns about Europe's political direction. But the campaigns also had important similarities, such as the almost unanimous backing the constitution received from mainstream centrist politicians and the scrappy coalitions of the left and the far right that opposed it.
The debate was more intense in France, where more than 700,000 books about the constitution were sold and newspapers offered comprehensive daily analysis of the treaty's most important elements.
Many No voters identified anxiety about the future of France's social model as their main reason for rejecting the constitution. They feared that the treaty tied the EU into liberal economic policies that could see well-paid jobs and comprehensive social protection threatened by cheaper labour from central and eastern Europe.
The Dutch debate was more low-key, not least because most government ministers refused to campaign in favour of the Yes vote they claimed was in the vital interest of the Netherlands. This was the first referendum in the country's history as a parliamentary democracy and many voters seized the opportunity to make their views clear on EU policies they had never been asked about before.
The size of the Dutch per-capita net contribution to the EU budget, which is the biggest of any member state, and the perceived inflationary impact of the euro became rallying points for No voters. Some used the referendum to express their anger at a system that obliged the Dutch government to make painful cuts to public services to comply with EU budget rules but allowed France and Germany to break the same rules year after year without sanction.
Beyond such specific issues, however, the campaigns in both countries revealed an enormous loss of faith in the EU's capacity to provide the prosperity that has been its hallmark for much of the past 50 years. In a climate of sluggish economic growth, persistent high unemployment and deteriorating public services, many continental Europeans fear that the pro-market solutions coming from Brussels could make their lives even more insecure.
As the EU has expanded to 25 member states and taken on more responsibilities, its institutional workings have become more complex and more remote from citizens. The elites in Brussels and in the national capitals have become ever more defensive, eyeing with suspicion an ungrateful public that apparently fails to understand what is being achieved on its behalf.
Neither the French nor the Dutch outcomes took Brussels by surprise, but the high turnout and decisive margins against the constitution in both countries were unexpected. The EU President, Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker, and Commission President José Manuel Barroso, insisted after both referendums that the process of ratifying the constitution must carry on regardless.
Schröder, Chirac and Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende endorsed the call, claiming that it would be undemocratic to deprive the remaining member states of the chance to have their say on the treaty. Obliging other countries to put the constitution to a vote would also have the likely consequence of ensuring that France and the Netherlands would not be the only member states to say No.
For this reason, Britain has led calls for the ratification process to be abandoned rather than risk a series of demoralising defeats throughout Europe. Even before the French referendum, friends of Tony Blair were arguing that a French No would mean the end of the constitution and that there was no point in holding a British vote on it.
Britain may have moved too soon to try to shut down the ratification process altogether and the consensus now emerging in Europe points to a postponement or suspension of ratification rather than a complete halt. This would mean that no further referendums or parliamentary votes on the constitution would take place while EU leaders engaged in a "period of reflection". The current deadline of November 2006, by which time all governments should have ratified the constitution, would be shelved.
Such a decision, which would have to be agreed by all EU leaders at a summit on June 16th, would allow the Government to postpone Ireland's referendum indefinitely while the EU worked out how to address the concerns expressed by French and Dutch voters.
Few observers in Brussels expect the constitution to be revived within the next two or three years and most believe that no progress will be possible until after Germany has a new - or re-elected - chancellor later this year and France has a new president in 2007.
In the meantime, Blair takes over the EU presidency next month, determined to launch a renewed campaign for economic reform in Europe. Barroso has made a drive for economic reform the central mission of his commission's five-year term, so far with no success whatsoever.
Part of the problem is that most of the steps necessary remain the preserve of national governments and cannot be dictated from Brussels. EU-wide measures such as the proposed services directive, aimed at opening up the European market in services, are deeply unpopular.
The real malaise may have less to do with European institutions or policies than with the feeble democratic life of the EU, as Balkenende suggested after the Dutch vote.
"The idea of Europe has lived for the politicians, but not the Dutch people. That will have to change," he said.
The Financial Times called yesterday for structured national debates on Europe in each member state, modelled on Ireland's National Forum on Europe. Such a bottom-up approach may represent the best route towards giving the EU back to its citizens and building a stronger, more democratic union for the 21st century.