Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Referendum francese. Fine dell'Unione Europea politica?

Tra le altre sciagure incombenti per il 2005 c'e' l'esito negativo del 
referendum francese sulla Costituzione Europea che potrebbe spaccare 
l'Unione proprio mentre potrebbe fare da contrappeso agli USA.
A.
The Independent
Chirac warns Blair of blow to EU dream 
Revealed: Tory adviser accused of 'dirty tricks' 
Chirac warns Blair of blow to EU dream
By John Lichfield in Paris
21 November 2004
 Tony Blair and other European leaders are awaiting a decision next week 
by a few thousand French Socialists which could destroy the European 
Union constitution - and save the Prime Minister the humiliation of 
defeat in a British referendum on the document.
President Jacques Chirac warned Tony Blair when he visited London last 
week - just as he has warned other EU leaders in recent days - that 
there is now a strong possibility that France will reject the proposed 
European constitution when it votes in a referendum next year. "If the 
vote was held today, we would lose it," Mr Chirac has been telling 
anxious visitors and telephone callers from other European capitals.
A French "non" would be an even greater humiliation for Mr Chirac than a 
British "no" for Mr Blair. The President's pessimism is based on 
assessments by the French security services, and by Mr Chirac's own 
sensitive political antennae, of the likely outcome of a ballot of 
members of the 120,000 members of the Parti Socialiste on 1 December.
France's main opposition party - created by the passionately 
pro-European François Mitterrand - is split down the middle on the new 
treaty, which streamlines EU decision-making and gives Europe its own 
constitution for the first time. The party's first secretary, François 
Hollande, has been campaigning around the country for a "yes" vote. His 
number two, the former prime minister and finance minister Laurent 
Fabius, a man with a reputation as a moderate and a convinced European, 
has been pleading for a "no".
If the party's 120,000 "militants", or card-carrying members, vote on 1 
December to commit the Socialist Party to campaign for a "non", it is 
difficult to see how President Chirac could win the nationwide 
referendum, expected in the second half of next year.
Other, more extreme left-wing parties in France have already rejected 
the constitution as an Anglo-Saxon, ultra-capitalist conspiracy that 
would destroy the European "welfare state" model and outlaw any attempt 
to adopt "true" socialist policies. The far-right National Front, and 
parts of Mr Chirac's own moderate right, condemn the constitution in 
much the same terms as British Eurosceptics, as an erosion of national 
sovereignty and an invitation to statist interference in the economy.
If France does vote "non", the treaty - painfully negotiated over two 
years, under the chairmanship of a former French president, Valéry 
Giscard d'Estaing - would be a dead letter. It is inconceivable that 
other EU countries could implement the new arrangements, excluding or 
marginalising a country like France, which is politically, economically 
and historically part of Europe's "core".
The vote by the grassroots members of the French Socialist Party could 
decide the fate of the European constitution, plunging the European 
Union and its population of 460 million into crisis long before British 
voters are given a chance to say "yes" or "no", probably in the first 
half of 2006.
The argument within the Socialist Party has turned into a miniature 
national election campaign in recent days, with stump meetings 
generating loud music and mutual accusations of lies and dirty tricks. 
The outcome could decide not only the likely French vote on the 
constitution but the direction and leadership of the French Socialists 
for years to come.
The "yes" camp suspects Mr Fabius of joining the "no" campaign as a 
populist ploy to boost his chances of emerging as the Socialist 
candidate in the next presidential election in 2007. He says that he 
rejects the treaty as a convinced European, not a Eurosceptic.
In its present form, he says, the constitution allows disparate tax 
policies in the 25 nations which will unfairly attract jobs to the 
low-tax countries (eastern Europe, Britain and Ireland) and, ultimately, 
wreck both the welfare state and the European single market.
Mr Hollande, leader of the Socialist Party, says that nothing in the 
constitution changes the economic rules and conditions which French 
centre-left governments have lived with, and even welcomed, since 1981. 
Rejection of the treaty would not open the way to something better, he 
argues, but would fatally weaken, or even destroy, the European dream, 
ending hopes that the EU could one day become a powerful counterweight 
to the United States.


Non credo che il referendum francese avrà esito negativo, penso che Chirac
abbia scelto quella via per dare una dimostrazione di compattezza francese
pro-UE. E poi se la GB voterà no alla costituzione avrà un ulteriore
strumento per buttarli fuori dall'Unione.

 a écrit dans le message de news: 
Lp1od.198465$b5.98...@news3.tin.it...

Sbagli, il referendum francese è molto a rischio : l'ultimo su Maastricht 
fini con 51% si e 49% no.
Eppure all'epoca si partiva da 75% si.
Oggi si parte da molti meno pareri favorevoli ... sono pessimista.