There will be no winner of the Irish referendum – not at the level that matters most. But there will be a loser: the European Union. What matters most for the future of the EU is that it create popular support for integration. It is failing to do so. The most striking thing about opinion across Europe today is the decline of idealism about integration and the resurgence of a kind of nationalism.
Calling a second Irish referendum to achieve the “correct” decision has strengthened perceptions of the EU as managerial, even undemocratic. If the Irish vote Yes, there will be no surge of popular enthusiasm across Europe. However, if the referendum is defeated, there may be widespread satisfaction at the failure of an attempt to coerce opinion.
Since the rejection of the constitutional treaty by French and Dutch voters, the EU seems blind to a central insight of liberal democratic thought – that the means of reaching public decisions are just as important as the ends. The EU has declared member state nationals to be European “citizens”. But the truth is that they do not recognise themselves as such. Why have Europeans been so ungrateful? Why has it proved so difficult to create a European demos?
Open, sharp disagreements that create a kind of public theatre are the means by which national political classes catch the attention of their citizens and foster a sense of empowerment. But in the EU a bureaucratic preference for reaching compromises behind the scenes and presenting them to the public as faits accomplis has been the norm. The EU may be a civil servant’s dream but it is a citizen’s nightmare.
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