The dust is slowly settling after the referendum in France and Holland. New problems about the finances of the European Union emerge. Politicians still meet every day of the week somewhere. They pose for the family photo. They dine and shine. They commit taxpayers money. The EU budget for agriculture is at stake. We have 50 per cent less farmers in the “old” EU but those farmers still get more and more money. The politicians commit the money of future generations. They are out of synch with the population. When people all over Europe took to the streets with “no to the war”, politicians ignored the voice of the people. Some politicians – afraid of the voice of the people – decided not to hold a referendum.

Only 42 per cent of the people in Spain went to vote in the referendum. Only 77 per cent of those 42 per cent said yes! That is less than one-third of the registered voters! Normally this would make the referendum invalid! But because it agreed with what the politicians wanted, the referendum was hailed as a “big victory for Europe”. The politicians fooled themselves and didn’t listen to the people. When people took to the streets in Spain because of the “negotiations with the ETA”, politicians still didn’t listen.

A poll in Germany suggested the people didn’t want the new EU Constitution. They didn’t have a chance to say so. They were not allowed to have their say. A government without popular support decided for them. Most of people of the “old 15” seemed to want a “Europe-Light”. Politicians who are afraid of the people, are afraid of a referendum, they decided and ratified the treaty in Parliament. Fear is a bad consultant. But the people wanted to be heard. They wanted to decide if all the baloney about the Constitution was worth the paper it was written on. It wasn’t and the people knew and they didn’t want it. They wanted a recognisable Europe. A Europe with different faces. A Europe with a French face and an Italian face and a British face.

What they didn’t want was the ignorance and arrogance of the – mostly non-elected EU representatives deciding their future. All of them want peace “No To War – Not In My Name”. They want a strong Europe, a Europe with an identity.

They want the identity to be recognisable. But they want to stay Dutch, French and British, and so on. They want their own country to be strong too. They want their country to keep its own identity. They want to be recognised as possessing a Spanish, Italian or Danish identity. The civil and public servants’ network overflows with naked opportunism. Most of them have no mandate from the people. The people do not want Brussels to decide what can or cannot be done in their own town. For that they should have elected a town-government. But even that is not even the case. Civil and public servants are nominated by parties.

Without the party machine independent individuals have no chance. The parties cling to power, because this power helps them pay for their trips, dinners, chauffeur-driven cars and the weekly family photo. All standing in line. All smiling. Of course they smile. They have it made. A horrendous salary, a horrendous expense account, a horrendous pension. They are in the network. If something happens, they will be caught in the safety net of the party. There is always some slot to be filled.

They didn't pay much attention when the people prepared to vote on the European Union Constitution.

The French and the Dutch were two of the founding members of the EU and they are fed up with it!

None of the politicians in Europe are able to see that their countrymen are uneasy about national priorities being drowned by the EU.

Humiliation turned into masochism. Although the people had said “NO” in big capitals, those without popular support decided that “NO” still could mean “maybe”!

“This evening, Europe no longer inspires people to dream,” said Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, the past EU president.

The Constitution was intended to create some of the characteristics of statehood – a flag, a president, an anthem – for the alliance and lay the foundation for a political entity of 450 million people, representing a quarter of the world's economic output, bigger and richer than the United States.

But who needed a flag? The flag was already there. So was unemployment and crime. The people didn’t want their sons and brothers to die or get maimed in some foreign country. They didn’t want the EU to have an army. They didn’t want the politicians to decide which war was right or which war was wrong. War is always wrong.

I think the EU Constitution would have been accepted had it consisted only of the Ten Commandments. Nothing less.

That would have been enough! It would have the support of all religions based on the Old Testament. It would have had the support of all the people.

Missing in the present constellation is a grand vision of Europe championed by the people and not only by the political elite.

One could see how much the politicians were out of synch with the people when First Minister Jan Peter van de Balkenende stated that the referendum was a “big success”!

Missing the point of national identity: if Malta wants to forbid abortion and the Dutch want to accept its independence over such socially liberal policies as passive euthanasia and marijuana, that’s how it should be. That decision should not be taken by non-elected Eurocrats in Brussels. That decision is up to the Maltese and the Dutch.

The people want to cross the borders of the EU countries as they do now. The Danish do not want any war to start again. Crossing borders with inter-cultural exchange lays the foundation for peace. But the people do not want a European Empire and superstate. History has shown us what empires get up to. The people don’t want a United Europe to be a major pillar of a multipolar world, capable of standing up to the US and competing economically with the Americans and the emerging Asian economic powerhouses China and India.

The people want to have work and peace and don’t care about being “a pillar” at all.

“The Constitution, in this version, is history,” Czech President Vaclav Klaus, a critic of the charter, said after the French vote. “My fears that the European Constitution, with the ambitions it had, would not contribute to the unification of Europe, but will damage the process of European integration, were fulfilled.” Well said. In my opinion, he hit the nail on the head.

Rather than continuing with this out-of-synch syndrome, it is time for a “period of reflection,” as called for by Blair.

The pompous civil servants are so “out-of-touch” with the people that they decided not to declare the Constitution dead and sent to the morgue: they played with the idea to declare the Constitution not “brain-dead” in the hope, and perversely thinking, that something could still be done.

The suggestion was, let the Constitution sleep, and let the following government(s) in France and Holland decide to ratify the Constitution by the end of next year in Parliament.

However, there are still those politicians who have lost all sense of reality. They bought shoes as a birthday present for a dead uncle, because the shoes were on sale. Some of them even want to continue with the ratification process. They know it doesn’t make sense, but all those meetings in all those places don’t make sense either. They continue to buy those shoes for the dead uncle, even after somebody told them they weren’t the right size!

People in the post-Pim Fortuyn era have lost all confidence in politicians and their game. They have heard enough of the corruption in each old and new EU-country, in which Prime Ministers and their crew had been caught red-handed with both hands in the till. They heard about European MPs checking-in for meetings that wouldn’t take place in order to get expense-money, tax-payers, money.

One of the main reasons why the European Union has lost its appeal for the people in the street is the purchasing power of the euro.

Abuse and misuse of the euro has diminished its purchasing power considerably. Not statistically though. Economist are pointing out that the “basket” related to the inflation index has stayed within expectations. But people don’t buy “baskets”, they spend their money differently as economists predict.

Example: parking that had been 1 DM/hour in a garage owned by the local community has gone up to 1 €/hour. That’s an increase of 120 per cent! I myself, travelling in four different “old” EU-countries regularly, estimate that average travel costs have gone up by 25 – 30 per cent. People in Germany want the German Mark back and the Italians want to pay L 1500 for their cappuccino. The Dutch want their Guilder back. What do the politicians reply, you ask? Well they point the finger at somebody else of course. For them, the NGOs keeping track of prices like consumers-organisations didn’t do it right! Funny isn’t it, that politicians are never responsible for anything whatsoever (?).

I lived for several years in four of the old EU-countries and agree that the euro is convenient.

But I still can’t use my electrical plug in all EU countries, can’t buy a stamp which is valid in all EU-countries and have underwear in five different sizes because I forget that “size 5” in France is different from “size 5” in some other EU countries. My medicine is cheaper or more expensive in some of the countries and have to go to a local physician who has never seen me, in order to get a refill.

I am a sensible Dutch who wants the Germans to lose when we play football, because that’s my identity. I don’t understand why the common sausage in Holland is called “knakworst”, “frankfurter” in Vienna, and “wiener” in Frankfurt and I don’t care. At least I know I am In Austria when they serve “frankfurter”, and I like it that the Austrians are different and hope they will stay that way.

So why did those sensible Dutch say “NEE”? Well first of all they didn’t believe those doom merchants, including the prime minister referring to “Auschwitz”, another Minister referring to “War” and another one telling the Dutch that the “lights would go out” and that unemployment would be round the corner. Well the Dutch had a peek round the corner and then they remembered some other statements made by those politicians that had been outright lies, so they thought, we’d better not buy a second-hand Constitution from this fellow. We already have a Constitution, a rather old one, but trading it in for something created by this fellow (V.G.d’E) who once dealt in diamonds with the emperor of the Central African Republic doesn’t seem a wise thing to do. Those Dutch wanted to keep things as they were and bring unemployment down, the solders back from abroad and winning a game of football! We don’t believe a chap who talks about “norms and values” and at the same time smiles at GWB. We keep our Constitution and we hope the Italians keep theirs. We know the people from New Zealand don’t even have a Constitution and there the lights didn’t go out etc. etc.

When the euro was connected to the “Stability Pact of Maastricht” everybody had to comply with the rules. When Germany disregarded the rules and was not fined, people realised that some were more equal than others. Then France broke the rule, then Holland and Greece cheated the Eurostat agency. Eurostat is an EU institution which has been flowing over with corruption. So people lost trust in Brussels and in the governments breaking their own rules.

For me, another reason not to vote in favour of the EU Constitution is its historical dimension. We had already once – not so long ago – an “almost united Europe” which started in 1939 and ended with borders resembling the borders envisaged by the present EU governments. That “AUE” was governed from Berlin whereas the new “EU” would be governed from Brussels. The vision of a “Greater Europe” resembles “empire building in which the individual nations by definition will lose their cultural identity in favour of a “European identity”.

One should not forget that none of the EU commissioners were elected; they were nominated based on the wheeling and dealing within the political network of their parties. So far so good for “democracy”!