Why the people are not stupid
Enlargement of the EU is creating a new sort of politics. The issue itself has only recently made the headlines through the Irish referendum, but the groups opposing the Nice Treaty, the nationalists, the neutralist Greens, the "pro-family" groups and those opposed to "cultural swamping" through immigration have their counterparts everywhere in Europe.
This year I have witnessed elections in the Netherlands, France, Germany and the UK. In each case I have been examining those united in opposition to political correctness, as exemplified by the EU.
An earlier, tragic manifestation of this rejectionism, was seen in the US, where Timothy McVeigh's and the Branch Davidians' hatred of big Washington and its federal agencies, the UN and all its works, led to the Oklahoma bombing and Waco outrage.
Whatever your view - whether you passionately support European integration or whether you believe it is a disaster about to happen - enlargement will unquestionably be a real turning point for Europe. Nothing will be quite the same again.
The people of Europe, inside or outside the EU, have seen politics fragmenting. The collapse of the Dutch government is causing even the moderately right-wing VVD party to consider voting against enlargement.
The European Commission is trying to hold the line on enlargement. It expects further progress in judicial reform, for example, and in the fight against corruption and economic crime. This is despite some reservations about a number of countries which are having to commit themselves to strenuous reforms by 2004, when their membership is due to become effective.
For Poland, the stakes of enlargement are particularly high. When, in a reversal of the result of the 2001 referendum, Irish voters approved the Nice Treaty, Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller toasted the result with Irish stout and sang "I love you Ireland".
However, we know that not everyone in Poland is backing enlargement. Nationalists and many on the political fringes are reluctant to see Poland dominated by a new "empire" so soon after the overthrow of communism. As the demands from Brussels prove increasingly difficult for Poland to meet and with the level of much-needed agricultural handouts still not agreed on by the current member states, public support for enlargement in Poland, and in other candidate countries, has been waning.
With successive treaties, the EU has expanded its role to include the Euro, a 60,000-man Rapid Reaction Force, an embryonic foreign ministry in Brussels, a vast array of regulatory agencies and a common judicial sphere backed by a proto-FBI at Europol, yet it lacks a coherent or accountable executive.
Nice abolishes the national veto in 39 areas, creates a mechanism for the most federalist countries to push ahead without the support of the less enthusiastic members, allows for recalcitrant states to have their voting rights suspended and calls for pan-European political parties.
Ireland's vote was truly a victory of the elites over the people. Prime Minister Bertie Ahern was determined to overturn the verdict of the first referendum. He did so by changing the rules on referendums so as to advantage the "yes" campaign, and rushing the bill through Parliament in a single day just before the Christmas recess. He also rigged the question, rolling in the vote on Nice with a vote on non-participation in an EU army, pushing many neutralists into voting "yes".
There are always losers in elections. But there are too many people in today's Europe who dislike the way it is going. This does not just mean only those who see themselves as outsiders, like anti-globalisation activists, neutralists, nationalists and Muslims, it also means many who just want to be "In Europe, not run by Europe", to repeat the slogan on which I was elected in 1999.
There is a better way. In my view, the current Convention on the Future of Europe should deliver no single verdict. Nor should the inter-governmental conference to follow in 2004. Instead, the peoples of an enlarged European Union - including Poland - should be given the chance to choose between Europe "Heavy" and Europe "Lite" in the European elections of June 2004, between the centralised, bureaucratic, interventionist Union of today or a flexible, outward-looking, businesslike EU of tomorrow.
Edward McMillan-Scott was until this year leader of the Conservative Group at Strasbourg. He is a senior member of the European Parliament's Polish delegation.
