SALUT!

Why I, an ardent Europhile, toast the French and the Dutch for rejecting theBrussels lie machine.
by FRANCIS WHEEN

THIRTY years ago this month, Britons were given their first and - so far -only chance to deliver a verdict on our membership of the EU. Or, as we called it in those days, the Common Market.

I voted 'Yes' with a spring in my step and a song in my heart. I may even have whistled Beethoven's Ode To Joy as I strode cheerfully to the polling station to mark my X for Europe.

What could be more modern, more civilised? I am of the generation that grew up soon after World War II, acutely conscious of the shadow cast across our continent by nationalism.

Almost every European conflict - from the notorious Schleswig-Holsteindispute of the 19th century to the Balkan wars of the 1990s - has been driven by national rivalries.

If only we could create a truly united European federation of some kind, bound together by common interests and common institutions, all this territorial tribalism would cease - or at least find more peaceful ways of expressing itself.

To Eurosceptics and Europhobes this dream was a nightmare. But I found it easy to dismiss their horrified howls. If they railed against loss of sovereignty, I pointed out that national sovereignty is eroded continually, in a hundred different ways, without a chorus of protest.

Whenever a country joins a supranational institution - Nato or the UN, the International Olympic Committee or the' International Whaling Commission -it agrees to pool at least some sovereignty for the greater good.The Eurosceptics' objection to any such dilution seemed to me ultimately anargument for retreating to bed and abandoning all contact with fellow humans.

Bogeyman

The other bogeyman - 'federalism' - could be rebuffed just as easily. If people tried to make my flesh creep with talk of a United States of Europe, I merely drew their attention to another United States. Of course, in the U.S. there have been and always will be tensions between the national and the federal. But after more than two centuries of such tension - even armed conflict, in the American Civil War - the Union has endured and flourished to become the most potent force on the planet, abeacon of liberty and prosperity. Is this an example from which we should recoil?

Hence my instinctive Europhilia. And over the past decade, or so I watched with quiet pleasure as anti-European demagoguery seemed to lose much of its resonance.

When the Daily Mirror marked an England v Germany football match with front-page headlines taken straight from the old war comics of my childhood- 'Achtung! Surrender! For you Fritz, ze Euro '96 championship is over' - it quickly found that it had misjudged its readers.

Such jingoism meant nothing to a younger generation that holidayed in Italy or Spain, that grew up on pasta and pizza, that revered footballers named Zola and Cantona.

The dread word 'Europe' is unlikely to terrify anyone who drinks cappuccino or German lager before driving off in a Fiat to cheer an England team managed by a Swede. European nations are becoming more closely integrated. Not only do I believe this, I welcome it.

Why, then, do I raise a glass of champagne (though not egg-nog - there are limits) to the French and Dutch voters who blew such resounding raspberries at the EU constitution this week?

For too long, people like me made what philosophers call a 'categorymistake'. As pro-Europeans, we automatically defended the entity that called itself 'Europe' in its gradual evolution from a common market to a political and economic union.

When the sceptics complained about its unaccountable and, indeed, corrupt institutions, we could afford to ignored them because we guessed they were insincere. These people would still grumble even if 'Europe' were a model of democratic transparency.

And so, cocooned in our smug complacency, we derided them as Little Englanders. Among ourselves, in the privacy of like-minded seminars and dining tables, we might sometimes lament the 'democratic deficit' and the absurdities of the Common Agricultural Policy. But we knew who the realenemy were - the Europhobes.

Clamour

Not any more. France and the Netherlands were two of the EU's founders, and neither is intrinsically hostile to the European project. Both, for instance, have long since abandoned their own currencies for the euro. Their referendum votes aren't knee jerk Kilroy-Silkery: they don't want to leave the EU altogether.

But they will soon, unless European leaders start heeding the popular clamour. So far, alas, there's no sign of that.

Peter Mandelson's lofty dismissal of the French 'Non' (suggesting that a second referendum could be held) was matched by an astoundingly insouciant performance on BBC2's Newsnight from Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, when he said Brussels' work would continue.

As Jeremy Paxman said, with that familiar lip-curl of disbelief: 'You don't get it, do you?'

This week's devastating votes are, above all, a rejection of men such as Mandelson, Barroso and countless other sleek-suited, well-groomed has-beens whose contempt for the ordinary citizens of Europe can be detected in everyt witch of their nostrils, every pout, every sigh.

Since European Commissioners are usually superannuated politicians in their native countries, you have to keep reminding yourself that in Brussels they are no more than civil servants - unelected, unaccountable and all too often insufferable, as well.

If Britain were ruled by a Prime Minister and Cabinet composed entirely of Whitehall mandarins who never had to throw themselves on the mercy of the electorate, wouldn't we also say 'Non', or 'Nee', or 'Not bloody likely'? Of course we would - and rightly

For too long, the 'political class' of Europe has treated the EU as an agreeable three-star restaurant where they never foot the bill and where hoi polloi are kept out by teams of polite yet ruthless doormen.

It's high time someone told these grandees that there's no such thing as a free dinner - and that if they can't pay their way, then they can bloody well stay behind and do the washing-up.

There's nothing wrong with the European ideal. What's wrong is the arroganceof a political elite who seek to realise it through lies instead of honest debate, who assume it can be imposed from above rather than shaped by the people.

Yet even after this week's emphatic double-whammy, it seems the Eurocrats haven't got the message.

They remind me of the East v German communist leaders whose suppression of a popular uprising in 1953 inspired this riposte by the writer Bertolt Brecht: 'The Secretary of the Writers Union had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee stating that the people had forfeited the confidence of the government and could win it back only by redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier in that case for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?'

Bloated

Well, today, the people have spoken. Europhiles can't wish away this result by saying that the French reasons for rejection were quite different from those in Holland.

Whatever the particular local sentiments which prompted those two votes, the underlying message is clear: Europeans feel disconnected from their institutions, and utterly disenchanted with them.

To carry on discussing further expansion, or a European foreign policy, is putting the cart before the horse - and a very bloated and unresponsive beast it is. None of these schemes will achieve anything without a fundamental reform of the EU's political structure.

Tony Blair's evangelical desire to spread the blessings of democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere may toe admirable, but why not apply it to Europe too? I still don't regret my 'Yes' vote 30 years ago. But I do feel it was obtained under false pretences, as has been every change in the EU from the days of the Common Market onwards. Politicians have lied, lied and lied again about where they are taking us in Europe.

This week's brutal comeuppance was long overdue - which is why, asan ardent European, I'm drinking a toast to the Dutch and French. Gezondheid! Salut! Cheers!