Pan-European referendum 'impossible,' expert says
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - "Recently I sat at a table with 20 top constitutional lawyers from different countries asking if a pan-European referendum was possible and the answer was 'no way,' because of all the different constitutional arrangements. It's more complicated than any other solution," Stefano Bartolini from the European University Institute in Florence said at a conference organised by the EU parliament ahead of the 2009 elections.
EU leaders signed the Lisbon treaty in December 2007, but the Irish No put a halt to the project (Photo: Portuguese EU Presidency)
Asked if this was the case with a non-binding referendum as well, he replied that this was the type of plebiscite he referred to, a binding one being "unthinkable."
The chairman of the recently registered Libertas party, Daclan Ganley, who was one of the Irish No-campaigners on the Lisbon treaty, has been advocating a pan-European referendum on the rejected document.
But the idea sparked some virulent remarks from British liberal MEP Andrew Duff.
"I think if you are seeking to destroy a parliament and political parties, then you resort to plebiscite. And you have populism, xenophobia, ultra-nationalism and racism."
He said he was in favour of holding referendums on "local matters," for instance on building a casino in a town, "but not on constitutional questions."
"It's insulting the intelligence of the people to ask them if they agree with this extraordinarily obscure text they are not going to read or understand. What do we have MPs for? Why do we pay their salaries?" he argued.
Another expert from the European University Institute, Mark Franklin, also said referendums were "extremely dangerous" because they could be misused by "unscrupulous politicians."
Mr Franklin, who studied voter behaviour during the past decades, said people use treaty referendums to express feelings on unconnected EU issues, such as immigration, where they normally have no say.
"It's really hard to control that you will actually get an answer on the specific question you're asking and not on something else," he said.
A Swiss citizen in the audience noted that in her country, people are very well informed when they go to a referendum and answer precisely on the particular matter they are being asked about, however.
Low turnout debates, a 'masochistic exercise'
With turnout in the European elections constantly decreasing in the past decades, debates in the parliament on this phenomenon were "a bit of a masochistic exercise," the legislature's vice-president Alejo Vidal-Quadras told the audience in his opening remarks.
"It seems to be one of the laws of nature now, that every time we have elections, we get fewer voters. We spend more and more money in trying to get people to vote, but in every European election we see the parliament acquiring less power from the ballot box," he said.
While to Mr Vidal-Quadras, the explanations of the low turnout were still a "mystery," in Mr Franklin's view, this phenomenon was easily explained by the fact that EU elections were not "real elections," where voters could influence policy making.
"Voters know perfectly well that they won't have any influence on EU policy making in the European elections, because the ultimate decision maker is the EU Council, not the parliament," Mr Franklin said.
"Give voters some real elections, then they will come to the ballot box."
Rise of fringe parties
The absence of strategic voting in EU elections - voting for big parties because they are likely to get power - should also lead to good scores for extreme parties, both on the right and the left side of the political spectrum, the Italian-based expert added.
To Mr Duff, a strong promoter of the Lisbon treaty, the rise in nationalism and even xenophobia and racism was all because of the rejection of the text.
With big parties reluctant to bring up EU topics such as the Lisbon treaty, since they were usually internally split on the issues, it was up to the "fringe parties" to talk openly about such things in the upcoming election campaign, Mr Duff explained.
This would only put more pressure on mainstream party discipline, which could ultimately fail to "suppress the quarrel about the federalist and nationalist wings," he said.
"It should be a fairly bloody campaign. And at least if it's exciting, it might induce a higher turnout," Mr Duff concluded.
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