- 16 -
will seek additional spending opportunities and will have a much higher frequency of EU legislation
than today. In such a (utopian?) political environment, citizens may see the necessity to have addi-
tional instruments, like an optional statutory referendum to control EU legislation, at their disposal.
Naturally, the constitutional initiative can also be used to assign additional competencies to the EU or
to launch a new policy, a new ‘fund’, to propose the enlargement by a new member state and so on.
In contrast to Schneider (1996), Epiney (1997) and Abromeit (1998), we thus dismiss the possibility
of including an optional statutory referendum in the EU Constitution. The reason is mainly a prag-
matic one: The optional referendum would unduly reduce the efficiency of EU decision-making and
increase decision-making costs very strongly. Either the optional referendum would be relatively eas-
ily accessible to a small number of citizens such that partial interests could slow down EU decision-
making considerably. Or access would be prohibitively high such that the optional referendum could
be declined anyway. Abromeit (1998) suggests to have an optional referendum on regional (sectoral)
objects that could be triggered by 5 percent of the voters of that region (50'000 voters in a sector)
and would come into force when a simple majority of voters in that region (in that state) adopted it.
This proposal gives a strong veto power to regional or sectoral interests that might well be against the
interests of a majority of EU citizens. Epiney (1997) augments a proposal by Zürn (1996, 2000) that
the European Parliament should be able to trigger an optional referendum. According to this pro-
posal, it would be triggered by an absolute majority of MEP’s that represent at least 5 states. It
would cover all directives and regulations and would be accepted if simple majorities of voters and
states adopted it. This proposal would unduly strengthen the EP in the balance of EU powers and in-
duce a plebiscite element in EU decision-making. Plebiscites have in common that they are de-
manded by the legislature or the executive and are thus at their disposal. Very often they are used
strategically as the French experience in particular (as well as the German experience in the 1930’s)
shows. Such provisions should not play a role in EU decision-making. Finally, Schneider (1996)
proposes an optional constitutional referendum that is triggered by 5 million EU citizens and must be
adopted by majorities of voters and states if a turnout of 30 percent is reached. In particular the
turnout quorum poses problems in this proposal because, as is stated above, it invites strategic be-
haviour of opponents of a certain constitutional proposal.25 The necessity for an optional constitu-
tional referendum does also not exist, if there is a mandatory constitutional referendum: Any change
of the constitution must be decided by EU citizens such that a selective constitutional veto becomes
obsolete.
Our proposal of a constitutional initiative is more cautious than the optional (statutory) referendum
with respect to the efficiency of the EU decision-making and the openness to give partial interests an
instrument for slowing down decisions. It is more ambitious than the referendum at the EU level in
general with respect to the preconditions for directly conducting EU politics. Abromeit (2002, pp.
201) objects against an EU initiative basically with the same argument as her proposal of optional
statutory referendum is rejected here: Initiatives would allow partial interests undue influence. In ad-
dition, the initiative poses the question of a proper formulation of constitutional amendments and legal
statutes.
25. Papadopoulos (2002) also proposes a participation requirement that has the same problems.