I think the first thing to remember is simply this: the fact that the constitution has not been ratified does not mean that the EU institutions failed to work. They're very cumbersome, and they need to be streamlined, but very many English language newspapers here are talking about a crisis in Europe, and I think that's not accurate, frankly.
I'd like to come back to your point at the very beginning. The major problem, I think, is how do we communicate better with the man in the street? I was watching Dutch television the night of the referendum in the Netherlands. They were interviewing person after person coming out of the polling booth, asking how they voted.
The interviewer suggested to one gentleman, in his seventies, that his no vote meant he was against the EU. The gentleman told the interviewer that when the Netherlands joined the European Economic Community, we didn't have a referendum. We were never consulted. When the Netherlands signed Maastricht and accepted the euro currency, we never had a referendum. When we enlarged the European Union five times, nobody ever consulted us. So last week, when this man received through the post from the Dutch government this “brick”—I'm using his word—of 400 pages of legal gobbledygook, he realized that they actually expected him to give a reasoned opinion on this day. And remember, this was the first referendum in the Netherlands for 126 years.
In those remarks I think you have the real problem. If you're going to do a referendum, you have to make it clear what you're having a referendum about. You have to give people the basic information. But don't send them a constitutional treaty.
I have to admit, even I have never read it from cover to cover.