Rally for a Referendum
London, 7.11.2003
I bring you regards from the northern Member States of the
European Union, more particularly Finland.
Our neighbouring country Sweden held a referendum in September
on whether to join EMU. They decided, by a clear majority,
that they were not going to give up their own currency nor
were they going to surrender control of their monetary policy
to the monopolyof the supranational European Central Bank.
It was women and young people who tipped the balance in favour
of a "no" in Sweden Of all the first-time voters,
70% wanted to hold on to their national currency .
The referendum was a good vehicle to mobilise the people.
They informed themselves on the issues and so the vote was
a conscious "no" to EMU. The Swedish example shows
us how a referendum can be used as a tool to motivate the
people to find out where the political elite is leading their
nation. The Swedes did not want their national currency to
be replaced by the currency of a federal State.
Where a representative democracy does not correspond to
the opinions of the people, direct democracy is required.
A referendum is direct democracy.
When the constitution of the European Union says that the
new Union reflects the will of the citizens and the states
of Europe, we all know that the will of States is measured
in the national Parliments. However, to ensure legitimacy
for the draft constitution which was prepared by the so-called
Convention on the Future of Europe and which is said to reflect
the will of citizens, we also have to gauge the will of the
citizens. The only reliable way to do this is to hold a referendum.
The Convention which prepared the draft Constitution was
not representative. It was dominated by federalists. This
is evident from the final draft produced . The European Union
is being federalised. The model does not have the same degree
of centralised power as the federal system in the USA, but
then even the USA was not a centrally-governed federal state
in 1787. It has evolved into a federal state little by little
over a few hundred years. In a similar way, the draft EU constitution
provides a base from which to build a European Union federal
state. Only states have constitutions and with this new draft
constitution, the EU is being transformed into a state. It
then becomes a state of states, i.e. a federal state.
Whereas the American constitutional convention wrote six
pages into the constitution of the USA, the EU constitutional
convention wrote more than 300 pages into the European constitution.
The Convention would dictate rules to half a billion Europeans
on how they ought to live. . Democracy, however, is not uniformity
and similitude, but is rather variety and diversity.
We, who were the members of the Convention, know that the
draft constitution was dictated from its politburo. It was
not prepared in a democratic fashion ; rather a constitution
for 500 billion people was dictated from the top down.
We have a duty to protect our democracies and build up a
movement for referenda throughout the whole of Europe. We
have to mobilise the people to defend their sovereignty.
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