World View/Paul Gillespie: It's been a bad week for Europe's political elites. Rejection of the EU constitutional treaty in the French and Dutch referendums and the looming prospect of another defeat next week in Luxembourg have concentrated minds in the 13 member-states still to decide on it.
Among them those governments planning referendums - in Ireland, the UK, Denmark, Portugal, Poland and possibly the Czech Republic - are particularly concerned about how they will become entangled in domestic politics.
Should these remaining ratifications proceed, be abandoned or paused now that it is clear the treaty will have to be renegotiated?
Political elites - small minorities who play an exceptionally influential part in political affairs - have been particularly powerful in forging European integration over the last 50 years and are still its main actors. This is in the nature of the representative parliamentary democracies upon which the EU is based and whose national elites create its interlocking political system.
Democratic theorists debate the merits of alternative ways to control elites by making them susceptible to mass participation, accountability and regular circulation through elections; but many still effectively conclude, with the political sociologist Robert Michels, that "who says organisation, says oligarchy" and that "historical evolution mocks all the prophylactic measures" which have been adopted to prevent it.
Such cynical determinism has taken a real knock this week. Referendums may be occasions for irresponsible populism but they also convey a definite political message. At an "elite" meeting in Dublin to evaluate these results, one participant pointed out that the EEC/EU has a proven record of recovering and reviving from such crises.
The facts of globalisation, European interdependence and the necessity of co-operation to manage them should ensure this happens again. Another recalled what the chairman of his company does when confronted with a crisis: invite board members to say what's good about it.
The answer this time is that elites have taken voters far too much for granted, have not explained their constitutional project, sold it effectively to them or adequately involved them in it and will now have to devise new ways of doing so.
At a similar meeting, in Brussels and in the same building where the Treaty of Rome negotiations began 50 years ago after the European Defence Community was defeated in the French National Assembly, there was a thorough discussion of what is now to be done.
The (Irish) chairman spoke of a generalised anxiety and concern. But he conveyed a message from a participant in those negotiations that this is neither the first nor will it be the last crisis to face the EU. He rejected the apocalyptic view that it is the end of integration, but spoke of a generalised failure of leadership in Europe's higher echelons.
When politicians spend six days of the week remonstrating with and excoriating Brussels to curry favour with domestic electorates they should not be surprised if on Sunday they vote against integration on Sundays. National leaders all too often deny their own responsibility for Brussels' policies.
The chairman insisted that speakers address the question of what European leaders should decide when they meet in Brussels in 12 days' time. Should they go ahead with the ratifications, abandon or postpone them?
There was a widespread recognition that this popular intervention is a critically important development in European politics, a huge release of energy which brings public opinion and mass participation into play.
In France the EU constitution and books about it became best-sellers. At many No rallies European flags were flown. Only a small minority of French voters are Eurosceptic. In both France and the Netherlands turnout was high.
For years integration has been at best a marginal issue in public political discourse; now it has been put at its centre. And this exposes the profound gaps that exist between national as well as European elites and voters, creating problems for national as well as European governance. Popular frustration reflects this.
With growing globalisation and integration national choices are narrowing and there are inadequate democratic means to assert control at both levels.
But there was also a common realisation that the political consequences for the EU's current agenda could be massively negative in the short term. Enlargement towards Bulgaria, Romania and the Balkan states, not to mention Turkey, could be jeopardised.
A gulf is opening between the 10 new member states and the six founding ones, according to a Czech speaker. It will be reinforced by a delayed and niggardly budget agreement for the next seven years. There will be uncertainty in the EU's international role, including its engagement with the US and Asia, according to Japanese and Canadian contributions.
The ability to stimulate growth and employment will also be affected over the next few years - at least until political leadership is renewed in France, Germany, Britain and Italy. But if economic reform is not tackled popular disenchantment will deepen, since attitudes are driven as much by effective policy outputs as by democratic inputs.
French and Belgian speakers argued that this is a deeper crisis than that in 1954-55. Rejection has come from the people and not a parliament, the quality of political leadership is much lower now than then and memories of the war provided a vital narrative to stimulate progress - albeit in functional economic integration rather than the more ambitious political union supported by federalists then. And the crisis has been there for a long time, but ignored.
A new generation takes peace in Europe for granted and has not articulated a convincing answer to the question of what the EU's purpose is in a globalised world. In France many see the EU as a Trojan horse for Anglo-Saxon globalisation, not a barrier against it. There is a need for Anglo-French reconciliation just as much as for a renewal of the weakening Franco-German co-oper-
ation these changes expose.
Two Portuguese speakers suggested constructive ways through these difficulties. A new narrative about the EU is needed to mobilise people. It should be about sustaining a European way of life, organising itself internationally and running itself democratically. While these objectives are stated in the constitution they need much more public debate and agreement.
It should be recognised that the target of putting the constiution in force by November next year cannot be met. Tony Blair, as EU president, could be asked to consult other leaders over the next six months on how to proceed, giving him a multilateral not a rejectionist role. In the meantime ratifications would pause.
There was an enthusiastic reception from the more federally minded participants for a French suggestion that a constitutional convention be elected to renegotiate the constitution, in which pan-European political parties would participate. Any future ratification process should be as simultaneous as are the European Parliament elections.
pgillespie@irish-times.ie