According to the BBC,
Jack Straw said it was now a time for a "period of reflection" over the result, but added the UK would ratify the treaty only through a referendum.
He said he was personally "saddened" by the French rejection in Sunday's vote.
There's his picture. Doesn't he look sad? Here is the full text of his speech.
Kevin Drum has a feeling that things need to slow down:
The polls suggest the French will vote against the constitution, and I suspect that might not be such a bad thing. I don't have a compelling argument for thinking this, just a vague sense that Europe needs a bit of a breather after a decade of nonstop expansion and consolidation. A single currency, the end of border controls, ten new members, and a relentless increase in new rulemaking from Brussels is a lot to swallow, especially when there are an awful lot of core differences between the EU's member states that haven't really gotten any closer to resolution during that time. A rethink and a slowdown might be in order right about now.
Drum could well be right, but it seems like in their efforts to slow things down, activists have been swarming. Lots of people I've read have been throwing the words 'chaos,' 'disarray', and 'personal reflection.' There's also the problem of a consolidation trend which it will now be more difficult to support with increased power. In other words, it now seems more likely that the EU will consolidate beyond it's capacity to govern.
Djerejian warns against triumphalism:
It's certainly not a great day for Jacques Chirac, is it? One might say that he's now completely damaged goods. Pity. Meantime, let's now keep an even closer eye on Sarkozy as '07 looms. This story, after all, is much bigger than him, and the ramifications of the "non" vote are not necessarily all positive from a U.S. perspective (much of the opposition to the treaty was from gauchiste free market skeptics; or rightist bigots like Le Pen).
Point well taken. If the French are voting on one issue and thinking about another, they're going about things entirely the wrong way.
Article comments
1 - RJ
Chirac, like Blair, is ruling on borrowed time...