ANALYSIS: Support is strong among the new states for the EU constitution. But will it last? asks Adrian Langan.
The new member-states have been involved at all times in the development and preparation of the proposed constitution for the EU. Even though they were not members at the time, they were represented at the Convention of the Future of Europe and took a full part in all the negotiations up to now.
Politically, the Poles received a lot of the blame for the failure of the Italian presidency last year to finalise the negotiations for the constitution. The issues were, and remain, complex but they boiled down ultimately to a belief by Poland (and Spain) that the new voting arrangements within the European Council reduced their power when compared to the other big states of the Union, especially Germany.
These feelings were accentuated by the not unreasonable opinion that when the Poles (and the other new member-states) voted to join the EU in a series of referendums last year, they voted for a package that had been decided in the Nice Treaty.
Now, a few months before they even joined, these rules were being changed, in a manner considered disadvantageous to Poland. Domestic opposition there even reached the point where one of the opposition political parties took on the bizarre slogan of "Nice or Death" as a principle guiding their approach to the discussions on a new constitution. Some people in Ireland would feel the irony of such a slogan.
Among the citizens of the new member-states, a big majority, 70 per cent, approve the writing of a EU constitution, which is eight percentage points higher than in the existing 15 member-states.
Within the new states, the greatest opposition to a constitution is in Estonia and Hungary, but still, only 15 per cent of people in both these countries actively oppose it.
Unsurprisingly, support for the new constitution is highest among those who work at managerial level or higher, with four out of five people in this category supportive.
The decision of Tony Blair to hold a referendum on the proposed constitution, and in particular the possible fall-out from a British rejection, has dominated the news recently. Some of the new member states are also likely to hold a referendum. Of the new 10, the Czech Republic has already said it will do so, and it can't be ruled out in Poland and possibly in others of the new states, Malta and Estonia being possible candidates.
While there are large majorities in favour of the constitution, the problem for the governments of these countries will be in the turn-out at the referendums. The lessons learned in Ireland about this are illustrative here. The simple formula for EU referendums is that the more the turn-out goes down, the greater the chance of a No vote.
The Poles even have a 50 per cent threshold to make referendums valid. They had a major problem in getting to the level of turn-out needed to make the result valid.
While over 50 per cent was secured, that was only in the context of an enormous sustained campaign on an issue of obvious and immediate importance to large numbers of Poles.
Whether or not the proposed constitution can inspire the same level of passion is an open question. And the desire to wait and let the British reject the constitution first may prove overwhelming.
The commitment of the new states to the process of European integration is at this stage very strong. Whether experience of being a member will blunt the edge of that support will be the key question over the next few years.
Adrian Langan is executive director of Bill O'Herlihy Communications and a long-time pro-EU activist. In a final article in this series tomorrow, he will look at the next phase of EU enlargement