The German government is under growing pressure to hold a referendum on the new European constitution after 30 of the country’s most eminent legal scholars declared that federal law could easily be changed to allow a vote.
Opinion polls show that 70 per cent of Germans want a vote on the treaty but Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has refused to follow the British and French in staging a referendum. . . .
Reflecting the prevailing mood in the Berlin chancellery, Michael Muller, the deputy head of the Social Democrats’ parliamentary party, added: “Sometimes the electorate has to be protected from making the wrong decisions.”
A fair number of people are snarking at Muller’s comment. Of course, a suspicion of thoughtless popular majorities is built into our own Constitution — though Muller’s comments, if accurately reported, seem to have more to do with outcomes than with government structure.