{"id":5046,"date":"2003-11-11T11:06:20","date_gmt":"2003-11-11T18:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=5046"},"modified":"2003-11-11T11:06:20","modified_gmt":"2003-11-11T18:06:20","slug":"spinning_madly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/11\/11\/spinning_madly.html","title":{"rendered":"Spinning madly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is the glass half-full? Or half-empty?<\/p>\n

Folks opposed to the proposed EU Constitution are tickled pink that a European Commission poll on the subject found negligible support<\/a> for the constitution as currently drafted.<\/p>\n

Support for the 230-page document was negligible among key states certain to hold a vote, falling as low as five per cent in Holland and three per cent in Denmark, said the EU-wide poll yesterday.
\nMost people with any view on the matter wanted the text “partially” or “radically modified” or abandoned, though most supported the abstract principle of an EU constitution.
\nBritons were the most hostile, with 35 per cent calling for outright rejection. But citizens in all of the EU’s current and future states appeared disdainful of the document.
\nSupport for the draft stands at 11 per cent in Germany followed by France (10 per cent), Spain (seven), Austria (six) and Finland (four).<\/p>\n

Go over to the EU news blurb <\/a>on the poll, and the story is completely different. <\/p>\n

2\/3 of EU citizens support a European Constitution<\/b>
\n67% of citizens in the enlarged EU support the idea of a European Constitution according to a \u00ab Flash Eurobarometer \u00bb on the Convention and on the Intergovernmental Conference. 84% consider it \u201cessential\u201d or \u201cuseful\u201d to give their opinion on the future Constitution by referendum. Poll results generally show large support for various institutional proposals made by the Convention and differ little from the June 2003 results. However, only five countries out of the 25 surveyed have more than 50% of respondents who state that they have heard about the Convention, compared to ten countries out of 25 in June.
\nSupport levels for the idea of a European Constitution vary between countries. The highest levels of support are found in Italy, Hungary, and Spain. In eleven countries more than 2\/3 of the population back the idea of a European Constitution. In six countries, support is lower than 50%. However, in each of the 25 countries support for a Constitution is higher than opposition.<\/p>\n

So, the bottom line is, people in the EU think a constitution (as opposed to Brussels simply deciding on new laws) is a good thing, but they think the 200-odd page behemoth that Valery Giscard d’Estaing et al.<\/i> put together is, in whole or in part, pretty sucky, no matter that its framers consider it the “will of the European people.”<\/p>\n

Of course, perhaps it is and they just don’t know it. In the poll, 61 per cent had never heard of the proposed constitution, rising to 83 per cent in Britain.<\/p>\n

The question is, will EU member states vote on it? Some countries are planning to, but Tony Blair, who’s dead-set on getting the UK fully into the EU is fighting the notion of a British referendum tooth-and-nail, to the point of pressuring the French government to not do so, either, for fear it will create further pressure at home. The survey makes clear why he’s not interested in a popular vote on the matter.<\/p>\n

(via InstaPundit<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is the glass half-full? Or half-empty? Folks opposed to the proposed EU Constitution are tickled pink that a European Commission poll on the subject found negligible support for the constitution…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9564,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/06\/04\/a_penny_earned.html","url_meta":{"origin":5046,"position":0},"title":"A penny earned","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 4-Jun-06 10:32pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Should we abolish the penny? 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