Unless the exit polls are severely wrong – not by a couple-of-point Ohio-sized margin but as they (perhaps) were in Venezuela – French voters have rejected the draft European Union Constitution. As Mark Steyn observed in advance, that setback will merely prove to the EU elites that the masses are desperately in need of enlightened instruction in what their own interests consist of, so I anticipate that some version of the same bureaucratic blueprint will in the end be forced upon a reluctant continent. For the moment, though, one can hope that the trend toward a European super-state has been halted.
What I have against a Europe-wide polity is not the potential “threat” to American supremacy. The adoption of the d’Estaing charter would in fact give solid assurance that the EU will never be a world class power, for it would entrench a dirigiste welfare state that will never be able to afford guns and will lag further and further behind in producing butter. (I mean the latter metaphorically; agricultural subsidies will ensure an unending surplus of literal butter.)
An unarmed, sclerotic Europe is not, however, in anybody’s best interests. As it ossifies, it will become more hostile to the United States (because failing states always look for successful ones to blame), less able to keep order within its own sphere of interest and more inclined to appease the militant elements in its Moslem population. Moreover, as a democracy-in-name-only, it will lack the instruments for peaceful revival. Give the eurocrats 50 years and the only road to a strong, pro-Western Europe will be one carved by a man on a white horse. I much fear, though, that he will be a man on a white camel.
Assuming that the French electorate’s “non” isn’t overridden by its political masters, there may be some short-term negative consequences. The Left will probably take power in France after the next elections and will plunge ahead with M. Chirac’s project of squeezing the last vestiges of liberty out of the nation’s economy. On the other hand, the rest of the EU nations will remain relatively free to experiment with liberal (in the Old World sense) solutions to their problems. They may even – I know that I’m being optimistic – come to realize that hitlerizing George W. Bush is not a coherent foreign policy. In the long run, those countries that choose the path of freedom will have a chance of matching American prosperity individually and American power collectively. From a purely American nationalist point of view, that might not be so wonderful an outcome, but the world will be better off for it.
In any case, let us celebrate for a moment. For my part, I shall read an issue of Vae Victis (the world’s best wargaming magazine, regardless of its origin) and revert to calling “chips” “French fries”.
Comments