Bureaucracy: 0
Democracy: 1
Reminds me of that great Dana Fradon New Yorker cartoon:
When Irish noes are smiling after referendum on European Union’s Lisbon Treaty – Telegraph
By Christopher Booker
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 15/06/2008
Seven years ago, Europe’s leaders decided that, as the consummation of their great “project”, they would draw up a Constitution for Europe. After extending its powers for nearly 50 years, often by subterfuge and deception, the European Union could emerge in its true light on the world stage, as an all-powerful, supranational government.
…
Then came that shocking moment in 2005 when the constitution was thrown out by the voters of France and Holland. The EU’s leaders were stunned, and bemused as to what to do next.
Then, last summer, they came up with a breathtakingly bold plan. They would rearrange the contents of the constitution in a way that made it virtually incomprehensible, omit the provocative references to a constitution, and railroad it through their parliaments without risking any more referendums – except for the only country, Ireland, whose constitution made one unavoidable.
….
Then came that Irish referendum, the one detail that the EU’s political class had not been able to stitch up. At the last minute, a tiny portion of the peoples of Europe had, once again, been able to speak up, in a way denied to all the rest. Again the leaders were stunned – but this time they were ready.
In coming days we shall see the degrading spectacle of them wheeling out their long-prepared formula for ignoring the Irish verdict, and imposing their constitution-by-any-other-name regardless. The European project will be revealed for what it has been all along: a mighty system of state power, run by the political class with lofty contempt for the people it rules.
But at least we shall be able to remember that vote by the people of Ireland, as a last glorious gesture of Europe’s dying democracy, before it is blotted out by the subtlest and most audacious coup d’état in history.
