Brussels, 21/02/2005 (Agence Europe) - On 20 February, 76.49% of the Spanish who went to the urns voted “yes” to the European Constitution, and 17.43% voted “no” (67.8% of the ballots were blank, 0.86% null and void). While regretting the low turnout (42% although the government had feared worse), the European institutions consider the results of this first referendum on the EU Constitution are encouraging for the other referenda to be held in nine other countries (probably in April this year in Portugal, in France no doubt in May, en May or early June in the Netherlands, on 10 July in Luxembourg, probably this autumn in Poland, not before the autumn in Denmark and perhaps late this year or early 2006 in Ireland. Also, there will no doubt be a referendum in the United Kingdom in 2006 and in the Czech Republic in June).
“The Spanish have said yes to Europe, yes to the future”, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso says in a declaration, expressing the view that “this pioneering and historic vote is a yes to a more democratic, more efficient and transparent European Union”. After calling José Luis Zapatero on the phone to congratulate him, Barroso also states: “I respect those who have abstained or voted no (…) The Spaniard and great European Salvador de Madariaga said that, 'if Europe was the body, she was also the soul, but she was not yet a consciousness'. With this referendum, Spaniards have been the first Europeans to have implanted decisively a true European consciousness”. The European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Joaquin Almunia, who went to vote in Spain on Sunday, stressed that “once again, Spanish society has identified with the idea of a united, democratic Europe able to speak with a single voice to the rest of the world. Our country is fully aware that progress over these past twenty-five years would have been impossible without Europe”.
At the Council, High Representative for CFSP Javier Solana welcomed the “overwhelming support” for the Constitution, saying he was convinced it would have a positive impact in consultations to take place in coming months. Entry into force of the Constitution will “help the EU to fully assume its international responsibilities”, the former Foreign Minister of Spain said.
At the European Parliament, President Josep Borrell told reporters that turnout for the referendum was not as bad as all that as, in the “consensual atmosphere” reigning in Spain around the European Constitution, it had been feared that turnout would be hardly 36%. However, he said, turnout was considerably bigger. Participation had been more or less what it was for the latest European elections in Spain, Borrell said. This is a “very, very good European result” he said, delighted. The Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, German Social Democrat Jo Leinen welcomes this clear result in a press release as, he says, it augurs well for the referenda to come in France, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The president of the Union of European Federalists (UEF) calls on the other Member Sates to take inspiration from the referendum campaign in Spain that was marked by the commitment of the major parties and the “active involvement of civil society, including figures in the sporting world and artists”. The European institutions and above all the European Commission should be more actively involved, Leinen says, criticising British Secretary to the Foreign Office Jack Straw for having asked the Commission “not to spend a single euro” for information on the Constitution in the United Kingdom. According to Eurobarometer, the British are the least well informed on the Constitution, Leinen recalled.
The President of the Party of European Socialists, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, MEP, gave his heartfelt congratulations to his “good friend Jose Luis Zapatero” for leading a “fantastic campaign”, for showing that “a strong campaign that actually deals with what is relevant to ordinary people in the Constitution is the way to win hearts and minds”. Although, “we would all of course have hoped for a higher turnout”, the former Danish Prime Minister said. Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Monica Frassoni, Co-Presidents of the Greens/EFA Group, consider that a 42% turnout is “respectable, all the more as the Conservatives implicitly called upon their supporters to stay at home”. In their view, “the behaviour of the Conservatives exposes the problems of national referenda on European issues, which always will be overshadowed by national confrontations”, and that a referendum on the European Constitution at the level of the EU, a demand that the Greens have always been advocating, “would have been the right way”.
We recall that, to date, Lithuania, Hungary and Slovenia have ratified the Constitution through parliamentary means.