This is the most exciting and heartening moment in Europe since the fall of the communist regimes. For the French and Dutch referendum results testify to one thing above all. They testify that Europeans still want to govern themselves
Ironically, the resort to referendums has provided Europeans with the opportunity to show how important representative government remains to them.
It has given them the chance to protest against the threat of pseudo-democracy in Europe.
The writer is an emeritus fellow of Keble College, Oxford
Larry Siedentop Financial Times 17/6 2005

It is startling how the political classes of European states have acquiesced in the transfer of power to Brussels since the 1980s. Parties of the centre-right and the centre-left have, in effect, combined to exclude the issue of European integration from political controversy – creating the impression among voters that the issue was too important for them to be involved.

What increasing numbers of Europeans sense is that an indefinite process of integration threatens to leave them without boundaries – not just geographical ones but boundaries in the mind. Such boundaries are indispensable to representative institutions, to a culture of self-government.

If the EU is to make progress on these matters, it must re-engage with national politics. This may require the repatriation of some responsibilities to the member states.

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