30/05/2005 9:19:58 am
Heads - You Win. Tails - I Lose. So there was a clear majority that voted no in the French referendum, as expected. The message from France is bad for Europe; it was a no to globalisation and liberalism. Many voters wanted to stop companies from moving out and people moving in. The problem is that a yes-vote would to some extent have been a vote against the same things. People on both sides wished to stop globalisation and liberalism: "Vote Yes to a Socialist Europe or No to a Liberal Europe."

And above all flies the defence for the so-called European Social Model. It is getting increasingly hard to have a big state that takes care of people from the cradle to the grave. The problem is that people blame the current problems with high unemployment, low growth and poor welfare services on globalisation and liberalism - not on the Model itself. The liberating forces are blamed for the oppression. And people do everything to keep the Model which causes all the problems.

We saw exacly the same in the Swedish euro-referendum of 2003. It wasn?t more about the euro than the French one was about the Constitution. All this is like an Argentinian tendency in the society of Western Europe. We have the same crisis of identity in the new world and embrace the dreams of the past - there it is Péron, here it is the Social Model. Both are harmful.

Regarding the EU, the result in France is not the crisis it is said to be. There will be a new proposal and this was probably the tipping-point for the development of two EU - one large which shares a common market and a small which also co-operates on social matters. One document - a Constitution - can never combine the "social Europe" of France and the "market Europe" of Britain.