Maggie's Farm

The Holy Roman Empire, Forestalled

Gwynnie has been fascinated by the European Constitution controversy.  It seems simple to her.  A structure would be created under which the European kings and rulers are compelled to elect a supreme ruling body to which their sovereignty is subordinated and which is not accountable to the needs or desires of their own people.  In return, the states of the electors are protected from external and interstate competition and strife.

She recalls it all happened exactly that way once before.  It lasted from 800 to 1806 AD and it was called the “Holy Roman Empire”.  Because the emperor was not accountable to anybody except for being routinely confirmed by electors upon whom he devolved great riches, the succession of the emperor became largely hereditary and ended up for the last 400 years in the house of Hapsburg.

 Gwynnie thinks that it was clearly the intention of the French that the house of Chirac and the elites of France considered themselves uniquely suited to filling the lost role of the Habsburgs and leading a proud return to French rule of both the lands won and lost by Napoleon and also of his traditional opponent England.  She thinks that a large part of the French “non” to the Constitution was the realization that France would not be ruling the EU, and would have no more than equal status to all those grubby little nations east of the Rhine and the Rhone, and south of the Pyrenees.  Recall Monsieur Chirac’s comments February 18, 2003 (as translated from Le Monde):

The French president, Jacques Chirac, denounced the ex East-European countries hoping to enter the EU on Monday evening, saying that they had "missed a good opportunity to shut up" by aligning themselves with the warlike position of the USA in the Iraqi crisis. "These countries have been at the same time, let's say, not very well brought up and a little careless of the dangers which come with a too-rapid alignment with the American position", said M. Chirac at the end of the special summit at Brussels.

 M. Chirac warned the candidate EU members that they were risking making their membership more difficult. "I find that Romania and Bulgaria have taken their decision to act this way too lightly, when their position as regards Europe is already very delicate. If they wanted to reduce their chances of EU membership they could not have found a better way", insisted the French president to the press.

"If, on the first important issue, they give their point of view independently of all consultation with the others who they wish to join, well, that's not very responsible behaviour. . . So I believe they have missed a good opportunity to shut up."

Oui, realize your true inferior status and elect me emperor. I’ll let you into my club and agree to throw you some bones.

Regarding France's refusal to adhere to the Maastricht Treaty requirement on budget deficit limits, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin had stated that creating jobs in France was his priority, not satisfying "this or that office or country!" -- by following rules France had once said were critical to the European Monetary Union.  Gwynnie believes that that statement was France’s true “non”, and that last week’s vote was merely ratification by the French worker/parasites who thought the deficit crisis was a close call (imagine if France could be compelled to live up to its treaties)! Only the “little people . . .“