EU: Setting Up Round Two

Read this excerpt carefully, because what the story describes is not really what was said. First, the description:

If the French and the Dutch reject the EU Constitution on Sunday and Wednesday, they should re-run the referendums, the current president of the EU, Jean-Claude Juncker, has said.

But he does not really say that at all! Let's hear it from the man himself:

"If at the end of the ratification process, we do not manage to solve the problems, the countries that would have said No, would have to ask themselves the question again", Mr Juncker said in an interview with Belgian daily Le Soir.

His words come despite a statement by the French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin on Tuesday (24 May) saying that another referendum is "not a perspective that France could accept".

Germany has already ratified its position without a referendum, and Mr Juncker is quietly suggesting that other countries can do the same. His words do not therefore come, as the article says, "despite" any statement by Raffarin; in fact, the two men are wholly consistent, not only with each other, but also with the elitist spirit in which the entire project has been handled to date. Thus begins round two.