Referendum or no referendum? That is the question.

Gordon Brown has been under such pressure from the Eurosceptics that he made himself look ridiculous by making a point of signing the Lisbon Treaty surreptitiously. With the excuse that he had to attend a meeting of parliamentary committee chairs in the House of Commons, Britain’s prime minister arrived well after the ceremony attended by his 26 counterparts and signed, alone – and hurriedly – the text that replaces the defunct EU constitution.

Tony Blair’s successor is desperate to avoid the referendum that the Eurosceptic Conservative opposition in London is calling for. He knows that it would be unwinnable. And the Conservatives know what they are doing: a British “no” would definitively block Europe or, at the very least, force Britain to leave the Union.

In France, Nicolas Sarkozy is confronted with the same problem: a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty would without doubt be lost. The French would once again seize the opportunity to make known their discontent (right now, they are not at all content).

But unlike Brown, who has yet to win his own electoral mandate, France’s head of state can confidently defend his refusal to consult the people. As he reminded us at the end of the Brussels summit on December 14, he “received a mandate from the French” to ratify the Lisbon Treaty through parliament. “During the presidential campaign, I was very frank, there has been no hypocrisy,” he said.

That is why Sarkozy can so easily face down the demand presented by over 80 left-wing parliamentarians in Paris for him to hold a referendum. He also stressed that his partners only accepted the idea of negotiating a new treaty on the strict condition that this time France would not default on its commitment to the Union – and would therefore not hold a popular vote.

No fewer than 18 countries had ratified the constitution (including two by referendum) and four or five others were ready to do so. But if the method of ratification remains a purely internal matter for each member state, it is nonetheless clear that no one can act in isolation in today’s Europe.

This is something that has not escaped Sarkozy. As he pointed out, “the minute France announced a referendum on the [Lisbon] Treaty, Great Britain would do the same. And what chance would there be of a ‘yes’ in Great Britain?” – underlining the extent to which the internal politics of each member state is now linked to that of its partners.

It is also worth noting that those calling for a referendum in the name of “democracy” are in fact pursuing a very different goal. As Sarkozy says, “If we want to break the European Union, we should organise a referendum.”

Because at the end of the day, what do those calling for a referendum to reject the Lisbon Treaty actually oppose? Its institutional provisions? Absolutely not (though it can be argued that they do not go far enough). No, wh......