Orwellian Europe: "no" means "yes"."You may have gotten the impression that the European constitution was dead--that the French had felled it, and the Dutch had pounded a stake through its heart," wrote Daniel Hannan Daniel Hannan (born 1971, in Lima, Peru) is a British politician, and Member of the European Parliament for the South East England region for the Conservative Party. He was first elected as the youngest member of the European Parliament in 1999, and was re-elected in top position , a Conservative Member of the European Parliament Member of the European Parliament member n → Eurodéputé m from Great Britain Great Britain, officially United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, constitutional monarchy (2005 est. pop. 60,441,000), 94,226 sq mi (244,044 sq km), on the British Isles, off W Europe. The country is often referred to simply as Britain. , in the London Telegraph on July 17. "If so, think again. The constitution is being implemented, clause by clause, as if the No votes had not happened." Since the resounding re·sound v. re·sound·ed, re·sound·ing, re·sounds v.intr. 1. To be filled with sound; reverberate: The schoolyard resounded with the laughter of children. 2. defeat of the Soviet-style European Union European Union (EU), name given since the ratification (Nov., 1993) of the Treaty of European Union, or Maastricht Treaty, to the European Community constitution at the polls in France and The Netherlands, three minuscule European nations--Cyprus, Malta, and Luxembourg--have ratified the pact. This means that the EU constitution has now been ratified by 13 of 25 European governments, a fact that Eurocrats haughtily haugh·ty adj. haugh·ti·er, haugh·ti·est Scornfully and condescendingly proud. See Synonyms at proud. [From Middle English haut, from Old French haut, halt depict as reflective of a continental consensus on behalf of the new mega-state. Ratification of the constitution by the three mini-states "is a strong signal that a majority of the member states thinks that the constitution correlates to their expectations," insists European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso. Additionally, notes Hannan, all 25 member governments--that is, ruling elites, rather than populations--have ratified the constitution. The way that the project of European integration has operated, writes Hannan, is this: "first, it extends its jurisdiction into a new area and then, often years later, it authorizes its powergrab in a retrospective treaty." The ruling ideology of the EU, Hannan explains, "is thought to be too important to be left to the ballot box." |
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