THE warped-cross “Berlaymonster” headquarters of the European Commission was still standing yesterday. The announcements poured out — on the welfare of broiler chickens, carbon dioxide trading schemes, telephone regulation and approval for the takeover of a Finnish copper company.

Workmen continued constructing vast new offices for the Council of Ministers. The subsidised canteens echoed with the polylingual chatter of well-heeled functionaries.

The EU has been plunged into its deepest crisis for fifty years after two of its founding members overwhelmingly rejected its proposed constitution. But in Europe’s capital there was little sign that anything had changed. Berlaymont was a place in denial.

Although 54 per cent of the French voted “non”, and 62 per cent of the Dutch said “nee”, few were prepared to admit that Europe’s elite had lost touch with the people, and that in their relentless drive for integration they had left their citizens far behind. In the Alice-in-Wonderland world of Brussels “no” has been interpreted as “yes”.

As Jean-Claude Juncker, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said after the French vote: “If we were to add up all the votes of those who wanted ‘more Europe’ as a ‘yes’, then I think that we would have had a ‘yes’ vote.”

In her Ikea-furnished office, Margot Wallström, the Commission’s Swedish VicePresident, produced a poll showing that 57 per cent of the French who rejected the constitution actually wanted more European integration. “A majority who said ‘no’ are favourable to the whole European project,” she insisted. “It is not that they have said no to the idea of European integration. It is not a rejection of the European project.”

The lesson was that the EU needed to create more European feeling in its citizens, she said. “We have to build more meeting places. We have to create a European public space. We need a European debate. There are still hardly any media that are truly European. For political parties, we need a political system that can work more at a European level.”

Although French and Dutch polls showed that the more people knew about the constitution, the more likely they were to vote “no”, Mrs Wallström insisted that the problem was ignorance. “It is serious when seven out of ten Europeans still say they know little about Europe. It will take a lot of leadership to create more knowledge,” she said. Mr Juncker said of his tiny country: “We are like teachers, explaining the ins and outs of the new constitution.”

When Françoise le Bail, the Commission spokeswoman, explained to the Brussels press corps the morning after the French vote why “no” did not really mean “no” — because people voted “no” for so many different reasons — an American journalist burst out: “In my country we have a saying, ‘W hat part of no don’t you understand?’ You don’t seem to understand any part of no.”

Three days later, after the Dutch rejected the constitution in far greater numbers than the French, and in far greater numbers than anyone expected, Jan Peter Balkenende, the Prime Minister, said: “I am very disappointed, but there are positive aspects — like the high turnout and the fact we had a debate.”

But his Government clearly lost the debate, and the people turned out in high numbers — twice the rate at last year’s European elections — to tell it so. Even after the Dutch defeat, European political leaders insisted that the vote was not against the constitution. The European Green Party rushed out a statement saying: “ ‘No’ in France and Holland does not mean ‘no’ to the European constitution.”

Grazia Francescato, the party spokesman, added: “It is evident that this ‘no’ vote is not a real ‘no’ against the constitution, but a vote of protest against . . . the neoliberal policies of their governments.”

Surveys suggest that the French voted against the treaty because they are opposed to the EU’s free-market economic policies, worried about enlargement and wanted to punish the unpopular President Chirac. In the Netherlands, surveys indicated that the Dutch protested against EU enlargement, the euro, the cost of the EU, its remoteness, its bureaucracy and just about any other EU complaint they could think of.

But for Mr Juncker this did not mean they or the French were annoyed at the EU. He said: “We have a range of contradictory reasons behind the ‘no’ vote. The arguments in France contradict other arguments in France. Now there are another set of contradictions between arguments in the Netherlands.” His conclusion was that “we need to continue with our ambitious projects” .

An Irish journalist retorted: “This reminds me of the Titanic, where the orchestra carried on playing.” Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party in the European Parliament, hid at the back and listened to the EU defending itself. “It’s wonderful, just wonderful,” he laughed. “They just don’t get it, do they? They just don’t get it.”

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