How The luxembourgish voted and "not voted" for the EU constitution.
international |
eu |
news report 
Sunday July 10, 2005 15:34
by iosaf - "our way of life"
Today 218,000 approx, citizens of Luxembourg will vote to accept or reject the draft European Constitution.
They will be the 4th EU state to vote.
Spain ratified it with little over 50% participation.
France and the Netherlands rejected it.
Luxembourg is a founder member of the Union, and one of its smallest and wealthiest (in true terms) nations.
It has typified the hope of a generation of continental europeans to live in peace and harmony since after the war, when its famous radio station helped bring a sense of "normality" to countless.
Luxembourg held the eu presidency during the first half of 2005, and as such its president Mr Juncker attempted to see the draft constitution of Valerie Giscard d'Estaing ratified, and quite ambitiously at the same time the current round of finance reforms sorted before their deadline next year / 2007.
Mr Juncker (nickname Junkie) has said he will resign if his citizens reject the constitution, he wants them to say "JO!".
His political obituary thus seems likely, with exit polls already suggesting a No or "NEE!" vote.
The 553 polling booths closed at 14h00, Luxembourg like Switzerland is a sunday morning voting place, where citizens are obliged to exercise their franchise under law (this holds in Belgium as well it is a criminal offence not to vote).
Quite odd, eh? imagine that, once in a while it is a criminal offence in the low lands of Europe to not get out of bed on a sunday morning. But the police have other things to do, than chase down the average abstention of 20-30% of the population, many whom would have a good alibi-
"I couldn't vote I was on holidays".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4668527.stm
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1525241,00.html
The question asked this morning is: "Are you in favour of the treaty establishing a constitution for Europe, signed in Rome on 29 October 2004?"
Opinion polls taken last month indicate that the poll could go either way.
Opinion polls are banned during the month prior to the plebiscite.
Police will arrest you if you attempt to poll.
Which is interesting because the cliché "exit polls suggest" has appeared on many Europe's newswires. The Police must be rounding up non-voters.
Luxembourg's parliament ratified the treaty in its first reading on June 28th, but a second reading will be axed if the voters say no.
Supporters of the "JO!" vote argue that this would symbolically keep the draft constitution on the table.
Supports of the "NEE!" vote argue that in their particular case, the constitution would strip Luxembourgers of their enviable working and social security conditions, conditions which have indeed help the EU to expand.
The largest migrant workforce in the tiny state is Portuguese.
the last in the series "how they voted"
Italian eggies-
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=70263
Croats
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=69836
Irish for their seats at Westminster
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=69724
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I'll update the results and some vacous comment as part of my ongoing "keep it real, keep it normal"
volunteer activity ;-) sure it's my way of life.
Comments (6 of 6)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6I think there is probably much informartion included in your articles and comments, but not having the time or inclination to decipher riddles, I rarely look at them and almost never 'get' them. I think you should consider making them more comprehensible in general as I suspect many people are in the same situation as I am.
There is also the fact that if you do have something to say, many people will assume that you don't if you write in such an obtuse way. You will be assumed to be a fairly common species of internet troll:
"The Affected Profundity Troll. A mutant subspecies of Sophist Trolls, Affected Profundity Trolls post endless pages of pretentious drivel that is intended to appear wise, but which generally makes little sense (if any). Affected Profundity Trolls enjoy asking themselves questions, sometimes answering them and sometimes leaving them hanging, for they believe this looks intelligent and lends an aura of mystery to their incoherent ramblings. Affected Profundity Trolls aspire to become Sophist Trolls, but lack the intelligence necessary to make the leap."
Luxembourg referendum results (100% counted)
56.52% Yes
43.48% No
( http://referendum.rtl.lu/fr/index.html )
All but a handful of communes in the south voted Yes. These communes are among the most densely populated, so its a bit one-sided geographically. The result confirms the French experience, as these communes are traditional industrial areas and normally left-wing strongholds. The richest commune, Luxembourg-Ville, voted yes with 61% of the vote.
I'll leave the rest to Iosaf!
"The Vacous comment" (((do skip if you're busy)))
Well, President Junky of the devoutly kathulrick nation of Luxembourg (the luxembourgish head of state is the only head of state apart from the spanish who is allowed wear a white mantilla instead of a black mantilla when meeting the pope, if of course the head of state is a woman, and married to a king or archduke) is not to see his political obituary written today, & instead thanks to an eleventh hour round up of abstentionists by a joint luxembourgish police and army operation, has seen the constitution passed with a slender majority of votes at 56.52% JO! to 43.48% NEE! a result which is as reliable as the spanish, but means that the majority of the EU 25 member states have now ratified the constitution.
thats that then.
You might not have noticed the majority of Europe's more than 450million people ratify the constitution, but they did.
thats that then.
and all legal too.
Luxembourgers will now turn their attention to the care of blue flag beaches, ensuring that the general public don't start thinking about obscure indian hindu fundamentalist terrorist groups, or the complex issues effecting the north african muslim world, or subsaharan african world or any other places likely to produce imitative terrorism and of course numerology.
keep it simple.
keep it YES to Europe
keep it "blame al Qeada!"
Richard Mugabe is yet to comment.
Well done Mr junky! olé! love the radio station.
Call them what they are: LUXEM-BOURGEOISIE ......
They call themselves Letzebuergesch, but I take you point, lol
For such a prosperous, traditionally ultra-pro EU state as Luxembourg this is a very high NO vote and augurs badly for any chance of a revival that would swing Britain, Denmark or even Ireland back to the Yes side,
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