Continuing on
my European Constitution watch...
EU in Tactical Retreat to Save French Referendum, ABC News
Is France planning on saying "no" to the
EU Constitution on May 29th?
Poor Jacques Chirac. European Commissioner buddies "have rushed to the rescue of President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday in a bid to save a knife-edge French referendum on the EU constitution by retreating on a disputed bill to open up the services sector" because apparently the idea of opening cross-border competition to local services, "from plumbers to architects" is making the "no" camp all a-twitter. Seems as if the "minority" that are planning on voting "no" also take issue with Turkey's eventual membership into the EU.
This should be a good one to watch. Even better is that one poll calls the "no" voters a "minority" and two others in
Le Figaro show the that the majority (52%) would say "no" to the constitutional referrendum. [
"
Poll: France Likely to Nix EU Constitution," SFGate 03/20/2005] Further deliciousness is that 52% of those polled didn't even think they were going to bother to vote. My prediction, less than 60% turnout in France. Sixty percent would be a respectable voting number in any democracy, though.
"The EU does not have a Plan B," noted Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka of the damage that a French "no" to the constitution would cause.
...
Socialist Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson said: "We don't want to have a new underclass emerging in the labor market. We don't want to have workers coming to Sweden and living 10-15 together in a garage or in a small apartment."
... like what happens similarly here in America.
Meanwhile, Ireland's set up
a website to explain the European Constitution, in order to avoid the European ennui, er, referrenda, that's sweeping the continent.
craigslist.org post and
cycletrader.com post
"Someone buy me, I rule! Vroom."