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After the French Non.

Article Excerpt
AFTER THE FRENCH NON

Elizabeth Pond (ed.)

Internationale Politik Transatlantic Edition, 6:3, Fall 2005

Berlin: DGAP

127 pages, paper, $9.95

The present volume is an edition of the quarterly Internationale Politik: Transatlantic Edition (TIP) edited by Elizabeth Pond for the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP--Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Auswartige Politik) in Berlin. It brings together, in seven sections, short comments, essays, analyses, an interview, a timeline and assorted documentation on topics as varied as post-referendum European politics, postcommunist transition, mergers and acquisitions, a range of transatlantic issues, a selection of themes from Iran and Central Asia, the Armenian massacre and Israeli-German relations. The contributors are as diverse as their contributions, and accordingly, in her foreword, Ms. Pond makes no attempt to link them all, concentrating rather on the title theme of this TIP issue: she promises "several Plan B's and several retrospective appreciations of the EU," and, taking her lead, it is on these that this review will focus, with the added benefit of more than two years' hindsight.

First off, "elder statesman" Giuliano Amato comments on the aftermath of the negative outcomes of the French and Dutch referenda on the European Union's (EU) proposed Constitutional Treaty. As the former Vice President of the very Convention that drafted said Treaty, it is perhaps...