Wednesday, February 09, 2005

What about us uninformed voters?

According to leading Czech political commentator, and former advisor to Vaclav Havel, Jiří Pehe writing in the leading Czech paper Pravo today a referendum for the EU Constitution is a good thing. But he has an, inevitable, caveat. The future referendum should only be binding if,
"a majority of informed voters decides on the issue" - according to a translation provided by the European Parliament office in Prague.
Pehe is a long time supporter of the EU and uses the article mainly to attack the opposition ODS. Claiming that if the people vote no then the ODS will blame the people for not receiving the full largesse of the EU in the form of grants and general fiscal bungs. The thing is, it will be their fault, and it will be them to blame, for not having their foreign policy and lord alone knows what else run from Brussels. If that means a few less cheques bounce towards the Czechs, well so be it.

Interestingly as a pro-European Pehe is an example of a Czech phenomenon. It is apparent from the vote in the European Parliament that the political classes in the Czech Republic are anti-Constitution. As is a majority in the Czech Parliament. So the only chance that the Yes side has is for a binding referendum.
However Mr Pehe rather lets the supercilious cat out of the bag, "what he wants is "informed" voters. As is universally understood in Brussels, it is impossible to be informed and simultaneously opposed to greater integration, thus opposition is only possible through ignorance.

2 comments:

Anoneumouse said...

.....Classic.....simply classic

Gawain Towler said...

Well thank you kind mouse

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