Britain announced on Monday that it is shelving plans for a referendum on the European Union Constitution until its fate becomes clearer, driving another stake into the heart of the beleaguered treaty.
The move was announced by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in a statement to Parliament on Monday.
Straw said there is “no point” in pursuing plans for a referendum on the EU Constitution after France and The Netherlands rejected the treaty.
The move comes despite pleas by London’s EU partners, notably France and Germany, to hold off, arguing it would bury the bloc’s grand integration project after the French and Dutch referendums last week.
A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the move is to allow Britain time to reflect on the fallout from those twin rejections.
“There is a need for a debate and obviously a need for certain European leaders to get together and talk about how we’re going to take this forward,” he said in a telephone interview.
European leaders are due to discuss the crisis at a June 16 to 17 summit in Brussels.
Blair’s official spokesperson told reporters earlier that Blair is “not running away” from a referendum, but it “does not make sense” to press ahead regardless of the “no” votes.
“If there is a Constitution to vote on, there will be a referendum in this country,” he said.
“The position at the moment is that obviously, following the French and Dutch votes, there is an issue to be discussed at the European Council,” he said, referring to the summit.
“Now, given that, it does not make sense to proceed at this point, but that does not mean that we are withdrawing the possibility of British people voting if there is a Constitution to vote on.”
The spokesperson insisted Britain is not pre-empting any decisions the summit may make.
“What we are doing is reflecting the fact that we are in uncertain times,” he said. “In uncertain times, you should not just give a knee-jerk response.”
However, with analysts and some EU countries already saying the treaty is virtually dead in the water, putting plans for a referendum in Britain on the ice is seen as tantamount to signing its death certificate.
Polls in Britain show a strong majority against the treaty, which is aimed at streamlining and harmonising how the EU is structured and run as the 25-nation bloc expands.
Most analysts agree that the demise of the charter sets set the stage for serious clashes over the very direction of the EU, which underwent its biggest expansion to date from 15 to 25 countries last year.
Britain’s responsibility is all the more acute as it prepares to assume the rotating EU presidency on July 1.
French President Jacques Chirac travelled to Berlin on Saturday for crisis talks with German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, at which they called for the process of ratifying the Constitution to move forward in other countries.
The European Commission reiterated on Monday that EU states should avoid any “unilateral decision” on the EU Constitution, but declined specific comment on the British announcement.
The EU’s executive repeated a call for a period of “reflection” ahead of next week’s summit.
A spokesperson noted that commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso had “called on [EU member states] not to take any unilateral decision that would … have a negative effect on this process of reflection”.
Britain’s leftist Guardian newspaper said Straw has to tread a fine line between London’s desire to avoid a hot potato at home and its duty to sustain the project of a united Europe, even if the Constitution is effectively dead.
“The enlarged EU is still groping towards a coherent but capacious identity that consigns not just Franco-German conflicts to the past but historic east-west divisions too,” it said.
“The rejected Constitution had its weaknesses. But it was a serious attempt to secure these goals,” it added. — AFP