In past decades, when faced with plebiscites on whether to embrace further European integration, voters across the continent had a habit of slamming on the brakes — though in several instances they later changed their minds.
So Britain’s vote on June 23 on whether to exit the EU, a process often referred to as “Brexit,” could have huge ramifications.
Those who favor leaving say that Britain would have stronger control over its borders if it left the union and that it could negotiate trade deals on its own.
Their opponents say that leaving the world’s largest trading bloc would have dire economic consequences for the country.
Most economists are saying that leaving the EU would have a negative effect in the short term, but that the longer-term consequences are less clear.
Simon Tilford, deputy director of the Center for European Reform, a research organization based in London, said that referendums in Europe had often fallen prey to oversimplification, base appeals to emotions and scaremongering on both sides.
“Lots of people will not consider the issues carefully, but will instead allow their frustrations with immigration and globalization, or fears over loss of sovereignty, to influence how they vote,” Tilford said.
June 5, 1975:
Britain Says Yes to Europe
Britain joined the European Economic Community, a forerunner of the EU, in 1973, during the Conservative government of then-British prime minister Edward Heath.
The Labour Party, which took power the next year, submitted the matter to a public vote.
The yes camp won a resounding victory — 67 percent — with the backing of then-British prime minister Harold Wilson.
The differences between then and now are striking. The bloc had nine members then, compared with 28 today. It was the Labour Party in 1975 that was deeply divided over Europe, and the Conservatives, led by former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who supported British membership.
Today, the Conservatives are the most deeply torn over Europe.
And Britain was economically downcast in 1975 — the sick man of Europe, a laggard behind West Germany and France — while today it is flourishing relative to other European countries.
June 2, 1992:
Danes Reject Maastricht Treaty, at First
In February 1992, 12 European nations signed a treaty in the medieval Dutch city of Maastricht, forging common foreign and defense policies and paving the way for a single currency, the euro.
Four months later, Danish voters narrowly rejected the treaty, which needed all member states to approve it. Opponents of the treaty preyed on fears that Denmark’s economy would be subsumed by Germany’s and would be captive to a remote bureaucracy in Brussels.
After the Danish government secured the ability to opt out of aspects of the treaty — including the single currency — 57 percent of voters approved a second referendum held on May 18, 1993.
Sept. 20, 1992:
France Approves
Maastricht Treaty, Barely
The continent was shaken when only 51 percent of French voters said “Yes” to the Maastricht Treaty.
The thin margin laid bare the deep unpopularity at the time of then-French president Francois Mitterrand, who had called the referendum, and it exposed concerns over French economic stagnation and fears that greater unity could lead to a new wave of immigration.
June 8, 2001:
Irish Oppose EU Expansion, Initially
Generous European subsidies transformed the small country in the 1990s into an economic powerhouse.
Nevertheless, Irish voters rejected the Nice Treaty, which intended to clear the way for 12 new members, mostly from the former communist countries of eastern and central Europe. Turnout was low. Opponents of the treaty feared the loss of sovereignty; warned that expansion of the EU could draw Ireland, which has a tradition of military neutrality, into world conflicts; and stoked fears of poor migrants from eastern Europe flooding the country.
In a second vote a little more than a year later, voters approved the treaty, swayed by, among other things, a guarantee that Ireland could opt out of military operations.
Sept. 14, 2003:
Sweden Refuses the Euro
The murder of then-Swedish minister of foreign affairs Anna Lindh, a proponent of the euro, days before the vote rattled Sweden, but it did not change the outcome.
Denmark, the other Scandinavian member of the EU, also kept its own currency, and Finland has been part of the eurozone since its inception in 1999.
May 29, 2005:
France Deals a Decisive Blow to a Proposed Charter
Former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing helped draft a European Constitution of the EU, a 300-page document that sought to pave the way for a common bill of rights and to reduce the ability of member states to veto decisions in areas like asylum and immigration.
However, the French rejected the proposed constitution, dealing a fatal blow to the charter as unanimous approval of member states was needed for it to go into effect. The French rejection was spurred, among other factors, by a revolt against then-French president Jacques Chirac and his stewardship of a faltering economy, and concerns that the vaunted French social model was under threat.
June 1, 2005:
Dutch Voters Also Reject the Constitution
Just days after the French rejected the European constitution, the Dutch did the same. Like France, the Netherlands was one of the six founding nations of what became the EU, but Dutch voters were angered that their country was, at the time, the largest net contributor per capita to the EU’s budget, even though it was not the richest country in the bloc.
Opponents of the constitution also stoked fears by equating ratification with the acceptance of Turkey, a longtime candidate for bloc membership.
June 12, 2008:
Another Irish No Vote,
Followed by a Flip-Flop
The Lisbon Treaty was a blueprint intended to rein in the bloc’s cumbersome bureaucracy and to enact some of the changes in governance that voters had rejected in the proposed constitution.
Yet voters rejected the treaty after opponents adroitly played on fears, particularly acute in smaller countries like Ireland, that even the watered-down changes would undermine national self-determination. It did not help that the treaty — which would give the European Council, a decisionmaking body made up of the member states’ leaders, a full-time president and would change the voting system so that fewer decisions would require simple-majority votes — was seen as opaque.
However, 16 months later, the Irish reversed themselves and voted in favor of the treaty, as an economic crisis helped tame resistance to the European project. The flip-flop echoed Ireland’s flip-flop on EU expansion.
April 6, 2016:
Dutch Rebuff Accord
With Ukraine
Supporters of European integration suffered their most recent blow when Dutch voters overwhelmingly rejected a trade and cooperation agreement between the EU and Ukraine.
Coming less than three months before the British referendum on EU membership, the Dutch vote was a painful reminder of the fragility of popular support for the EU.
The vote was officially nonbinding, but the government had said it would not disregard the results if turnout exceeded 30 percent — a threshold that was narrowly achieved. Negotiations over the accord are continuing.
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