'Pretentious, propaganda' EU vote looms in Spain

Madrid is running scared of debate as a Spanish vote on the EU constitution looms, warns Íñigo Méndez de Vigo MEP.

The Spanish centre-right MEPis a leading campaigner for a ‘si’ vote and a supporter of a referendum on the EU constitution.

But the European Parliament’s co-rapporteur on the new EU treaty is less than impressed with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s “pretentious” choice of referendum date.

And the Partido Popular MEP believes the Socialist Madrid government is ducking debate – a situation that could be a key factor in a poll expected to be dominated by don’t knows and don’t cares.

“I would not say it is an error to hold a referendum. I would say it is an error to hold it on February 20. And I think is a political error not to inform and to avoid debate,” he told EUpolitix.com.

Mendez de Vigo has learned two lessons – and indicted Zapatero’s government on two counts.

He fears that the referendum will be marred by the date, with February’s cold winter weather deterring voters.

“The first lesson is that a government should never call a referendum on February 20. That is the first reason and the Spanish government has done it for only propaganda reasons. To say ‘we had the first in Europe’,” he said.

“Politically they wanted this date to show how European they were, to show it in a very pretentious way.”

Méndez de Vigo suggests, an uneasy ruling Socialist parliamentary coalition with left-wing ‘non’ campaigners has stifled debate – a pre-condition to an informed referendum.

“The government only wants to give information and does want to hold any debate. The government doesn’t want to appear in public with its parliamentary associates, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya and the Communist Party.”

“These parties call for a no vote in the referendum. The government does not want to show this contradiction so there are no, or very few, debates. People get information through debates and hear all the positions, this is not the case. Therefore there is a lack of information and an absence of debate, which in my view is a very bad thing,” he said.

“Now they don’t want any debate because they are in trouble when we ask them how can you be in government if your allies have another vision of Spain in Europe? Spain is part of Europe, and European policy is part of Spanish policy, you can disassociate them. This, the government does want to show, therefore they try not to have any debate.”

The head of Spain’s PP opposition party says that if Spain votes against the European constitution it will not be a disaster.

“It won’t paralyse the process nor will it be the end of the world. Those two things are absolutely certain”, Mariano Rajoy said.

He criticised the government and Zapatero for being overly dramatic by making dire predictions of the consequences of a Spanish ‘non’.

Spain’s 34.6 million voters will on Sunday February 20 answer the question “do you approve the treaty instituting a constitution for Europe?”.

The final result, after a count of postal votes, is expected on February 27.

Spain will be first of at least ten EU member states set to hold a popular ratification of Europe’s constitution.

With all mainstream political parties backing the constitution, Spain is widely expected to be the fourth to sign up, Hungary, Lithuania and Slovenia have already approved the treaty by parliamentary means.

But while opinion polls put 45 per cent of the vote in favour there are strong concerns that citizens know, and care, too little about the constitution.

Official Brussels polling has put support for the EU constitution at 56 per cent – ahead of Europe’s 49 per cent average – but levels of knowledge are cause for concern. Nearly 40 per cent did not know on which side to cast their ballot.

A third of Spain’s voters had, as the campaign began, heard absolutely nothing about the content of the constitution, 55 per cent knew “very little”.

“Bearing in mind the low participation rate recorded in Spain at the last European elections, all the ingredients are there for a very low future turnout: poor knowledge of the contents of the treaty and low levels of certainty of going to vote,” concluded a recent Eurobarometer poll.

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