The Politics of Bifurcation: The 2005 Referendums in France and the Netherlands.

Taggert, Paul and Mény, Yves and de Beus, Jos and Ross, George (2005) The Politics of Bifurcation: The 2005 Referendums in France and the Netherlands. [Review Essay]

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Abstract

[Introduction] A few months after the French and Dutch electorate rejected the constitutional treaty, it is time to analyze the results of the June referenda and reflect on what they teach us about the EU’s legitimacy predicament. We must first disentangle what the “no” voters wanted to reject: their own government, “Europe” as they saw it, enlargement —since the phobia of the outside ran deep, well beyond the now proverbial fear of the Polish plumber. There were many “nos” and the French and Dutch outcomes need not stem from the same political dynamic. An understanding of the social bases of the vote is thus also in order. Paul Taggart provides such an analysis. Yves Mény and Jos de Beus then discuss in more detail the significance of the French and Dutch campaigns and electoral results both for the countries themselves and for European integration. George Ross concludes our Forum by arguing that the actual crisis in the EU stems from the anxieties about the European “social model” and notes the political difficulties that France and Germany, the EU tandem of yesteryear, face when it comes to reforming. Without growth and jobs, can there be a legitimacy for the European project? Without national reforms (EU-induced or otherwise), how do EU economies improve? This is the current double-bind.

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