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After france and netherlands britain canceled vote { June 6 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/06/international/europe/06cnd-britain.html?hphttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/06/international/europe/06cnd-britain.html?hp
June 6, 2005
Britain Suspends Plans for Vote on E.U. Charter
By ALAN COWELL
LONDON, June 6 - Britain today suspended legislation to hold a referendum on a new European constitution, reinforcing the sense of a continent in crisis.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told Parliament that rejection of the charter last week by France and the Netherlands had thrown its future into doubt. He said leaders of the European Union must come together to find a way forward.
"We reserve completely the right to bring back the bill providing for a U.K. referendum should circumstances change," Mr. Straw told the House of Commons. "But we see no point in proceeding at this moment."
"It is not for the U.K. alone to decide the future of the treaty," he added. "It is now for European leaders to reach conclusions on how to deal with the situation."
The British announcement followed appeals by some other European Union countries for Britain to stay on course for a referendum of its own, once expected next spring. In this largely Euroskeptic nation, Mr. Blair risked losing the referendum, shortening the third term in office, which he won in elections in May.
The announcement fell a day before Mr. Blair is to meet President Bush in Washington to seek his backing for an array of contentious issues - from African poverty to global warming - which the British leader has placed high on the agenda for next month's summit meeting in Scotland of the G-8 industrialized nations.
The coincidence of the two events illuminated Mr. Blair's efforts to straddle European and trans-Atlantic diplomacy, despite his unpopularity with some Europeans, notably France and Germany, for his alliance with the United States in Iraq.
Before Mr. Straw's announcement, Mr. Blair's spokesman insisted that the referendum plan was not being permanently cancelled.
"It doesn't make sense to proceed at this point," the spokesman, speaking in return for customary anonymity, told reporters. "That does not mean we are withdrawing the option."
"We are not taking it forward at this point," the spokesman added. "We believe we need to have more certainty" after the French and Dutch referendums.
Since those votes last week, Mr. Blair has been anxious to avoid the accusation from his European partners that Britain was responsible for the final collapse of the constitution, designed to set out the rules for an expanded European Union after its addition of 10 new members last year.
European leaders are to meet on June 16 to debate both the constitution and the European budget. On both matters, the Continent is divided, with Britain pitted against France and Germany. On Saturday night in Berlin, President Jacques Chirac of France and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany agreed "that the constitution process must go forward so that the views of each country are respected," according to Bela Anda, a German government spokesman.
The British announcement today seemed to fly in the face of that appeal.
Mr. Blair has also cast Europe's division as one of profound dimensions between the so-called Anglo-Saxon economic model of relatively untramelled capitalism that prevails in Britain and the cozier, socially-oriented approaches of France and Germany.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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