The British government has spoken. Its take: holding a referendum on the constitution in a euroskeptic county makes no sense after its overwhelming rejection by the Dutch and the French. In order not to offend his colleagues across the English Channel, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Britain would shelve its planned referendum for now. Instead, London will set the EU dish aside -- presumably until it starts growing mold.

The decision, he said, was due to a "circumstances change," a phrase which may go down in history along with other classic understatements, like Janet Jackson saying she had a "wardrobe malfunction" or France's Jean-Marie Le Pen infamously quipping that the Holocaust was a mere "detail of history." Of course, in this instance, Prime Minister Tony Blair and his cabinet were just trying to find an eloquent way out of a train wreck that was approaching head-on.

The British, writes the financial daily Handelsblatt, are too polite to talk about the "death" of the constitution. Instead, they are hoping the issue will take care of itself - possibly in July, when the Luxembourgians are expected to hold their own referendum. The paper argues that the British take on the constitution is the correct one. "A good dose of British pragmatism is more useful to Europe than sticking to a vision of integration that no longer has any legitimacy," it continues. After the failed referendums, "Blair's authority has now been strengthened." Why then, it asks, "should he rush into a pointless referendum so that (French President Jacques) Chirac can have a fellow culprit and the European idea will suffer even more." Instead, it concludes, Blair should push others in Europe to take some time-out to reflect on the European project.

London, argues Die Welt, is just telling it like it is. "Two key European states have rejected the constitution, " and whether people like it or not, "it is finished." The conservative daily notes that the British have never had their own constitution and, therefore, "do not see why this state of affairs should be unbearable for the EU." Perhaps London's shelving of its planned referendum will help shake Brussels out of its perpetual daydreaming. "At least since the French 'non', the Franco-German duo is finished," the paper opines, triumphantly. "Paris and Berlin cannot seriously believe they can continue to determine Europe's fate in exclusive circles." London's decision, it concludes, ought to bring that point home with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Schroeder and Chirac had it coming, rails the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Britain didn't reject the constitution -- instead it made it clear that it doesn't expect anything to come of it. "One may regard this as a case of (London) impolitely pressing ahead," it writes, "but nor was it noble of Schroeder and Chirac to want to take away the British rebate  before EU budget negotiations had even begun." If countries act unilaterally, the editorial argues, they should expect the same in return.

The only paper to come down hard on 10 Downing Street is the center-left Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which argues that the British government is still a wolf in sheep's clothing. "The British have already said 'never' to the euro and now Straw is using the same trick: never say never," it writes. And that, of course, leaves the British people to think that their own government has reservations about the constitution, thus increasing the Europe-wide momentum against the constitution. Germany and France are calling for a continuing ratification process in the hope that 20 countries will ratify the constitution by autumn 2006. If that were to happen, the European Council could then decide what to do with the remaining countries that voted against it or didn't vote at all. "This would be the worst-case scenario for Blair," the paper argues. "He hasn't really told his people about the back door. London would have to leave the EU. But Blair's government doesn't want this, so Straw has his hand on the back door handle -- and he can open or close it if necessary."