The Dutch who say "Nee"!

As opposed to the knights who say "Ni". The Netherlands just followed the French in flipping off the EU Constitution.

The Dutch have spoken and they voted by 62% against. Nee is Dutch for "no".

And the Euro continues to slide against the dollar in the face of a possible break-up of the European Union. The German Bundestag is already looking at the legal ramifications that would result from withdrawing from the charter.

But wait...there's more:

The euro was also undermined yesterday by renewed expectations that the next move from the European Central Bank may be to cut, rather than raise rates.

This talk, although by no means a majority view, was fanned yesterday by news that eurozone manufacturing output contracted for a second month in April. Furst quarter eurozone growth was also revised down.

Jonah Goldberg at NRO:

Though I do think there's little reason to rejoice about the voter's intentions. If I understand the debate in France correctly, it was about whether or not a refrigerator box or a tree house makes for a better place to hide. Oh, wait, that was a different debate. This debate was about whether or not the proposed new EU constitution would result in "ultraliberalism" AKA as "the American" economic model. In other words, both the yes-ers and the no-ers were voting with anti-American attitudes. One group wanted the EU to stick it to America geopolitically. The other group found that part appealing, but was more afraid of becoming like America culturally and economically. In short, I think France remains largely a write-off to us. The good news, however, is that France is now far less positioned to determine the course of European foreign policy generally -- and that's great news.

Ironically, Chirac and co. proclaimed a "no" vote to be a benefit to the U.S. and many cast their vote as an "anti-American" one.

Update: Dang! Captain Ed beat me to the punch on the Monty Python joke!

Posted by: Gary at 07:35 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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