Heads of government are gathering in Rome in, suitably enough, a Mussolini-era building to discuss yet another product of Europe’s seemingly perpetual obsession with finding alternatives to democracy, Diamond Giscard’s proposed EU ‘constitution.’ The Czech Republic’s reliably awkward new president, the sort-of-Thatcherite Vaclav Klaus, seems set to spoil the party. He’s boycotting the festivities, explaining as follows:
“This is crossing the Rubicon after which there will be no more sovereign states in Europe with fully fledged governments and parliaments which represent legitimate interests of their citizens…Basic matters will be decided by a remote federal government in Brussels, and Czech citizens will be only a tiny particle whose voice and influence will be almost zero.”
He’s right – and this constitution is wrong.