The paradox of politics...
Here an English answer in Spiegel online:
DUTCH RUB FOR EU CONSTITUTION
Europe's Existential Crisis
By Charles Hawley
"Holland on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly against ratifying the European constitution. Coming just three days after France's rejection, the vote has plunged the EU into an identity crisis. The time may finally have come to define what exactly the European Union actually is.
AFP
The "nees" have it in The Netherlands.
The Euro-analysts are hard at work. Spin-doctors are putting in overtime. Newspaper commentators are laying in extra supplies of ink. Everyone, in short, who has something to say about the deep crisis facing the European Union following the rejection of the EU constitution in referenda held in France on Sunday and in Holland on Wednesday are rushing to write prescriptions as they probe the ailing club. Yet nobody really has any clue what to do next.
The vote in Holland presented the EU constitution with an even more thunderously loud "no" than its predecessor in France. In a larger than expected turnout of 62.8 percent, 61.6 percent of the Dutch elected to scrap the document as it currently stands, with only 38.4 percent favoring it. Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende was quick to announce that his government would respect the results of the non-binding referendum -- the first to be held in Holland in 200 years. Europe's common currency, the euro, plunged to $1.2158 in New York -- its lowest rate in eight months -- before beginning a slight rebound on Thursday.
"The idea of Europe has lived for the politicians, but not the Dutch people," Balkenende said on Wednesday evening. "That will have to change. We will need to bring across the message that there are doubts here about the fast pace of change, the Dutch identity and other, financial, concerns."
Super-state versus nation state
Read on here:
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,358703,00.html
Pic: European Commission Chief Jose Manuel Barroso is not having a good week.
