schadenfreude

Glenn Reynolds points out this story on how Valery Giscard d'Estaing's draft EU constitution is being received by the masses. Seems that the man who fancies himself as Europe's Jefferson may be in for a rude awakening:

Support for the 230-page document was negligible among key states certain to hold a vote, falling as low as five per cent in Holland and three per cent in Denmark, said the EU-wide poll yesterday.

Most people with any view on the matter wanted the text “partially” or “radically modified” or abandoned, though most supported the abstract principle of an EU constitution.

Britons were the most hostile, with 35 per cent calling for outright rejection. But citizens in all of the EU's current and future states appeared disdainful of the document.

230 pages. Guess that's what is required when one's goal is to eliminate national sovereignty by stealth. The Prof has a couple of prognostications.

Prediction: They'll try to find a way to approve it without a vote. Another prediction: The legitimacy of the EU will be further tarnished.

As it turns out, there isn't much prescience involved in such forecasts. Don't poll on EU, Britain pleads with France:

British diplomats have appealed to France not to hold a referendum on the new European constitution to avoid embarrassing Tony Blair. …

France narrowly won the referendum on the Maastricht Treaty and there are suggestions that it could lose a plebiscite on the European constitution. Ministers are also concerned that pressure for a referendum in Britain would escalate sharply if such a close neighbour as France opted for one.

In other words, Blair's Labour Government is interfering in French internal affairs, to persuade Chirac to keep a referendum on France's future away from his public, so that Blair can sign away the UK's sovereignty without bothering with things like overwhelming popular opposition. I have nothing but good things to say about Tony Blair's steadfast support of the Iraq war—but this reveals a very disturbing, and very undemocratic, tendency.