The constitution was a pleasing portmanteau of all the nostrums of good governance of the early 2000s. The European Trade Union movement gave its approval. Tony Blair and Britain’s New Labour government were enthusiastic. In Washington, DC, the Hamilton Project would probably have been pleased to put its name to it. But on May 29, 2005, the constitution was rejected by popular referenda in France and then, in June, in the Netherlands. Left-wing hostility to the promarket character of the EU and nationalist hostility to Brussels united to deliver solid majorities against it.
