For many Europeans, the EU constitution may seem dead and buried after French and Dutch "No" votes, but it is the object of impassioned debate in tiny Luxembourg ahead of next Sunday's referendum. At issue is not just whether the charter, designed to make an enlarged 25-nation European Union work more effectively, ever comes into force.
It may never see daylight however the intensely politicised Luxembourgers vote.
Also at stake is the fate of the EU's longest serving leader, Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, one of the architects of the euro and the chairman of the Eurogroup of finance ministers of the 12-nation single currency area.
Juncker, 50, who has just handed over the bloc's rotating presidency to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has threatened to resign if the Grand Duchy's 223,000 registered voters give the constitution the thumbs-down.
The Christian Democratic leader, in office for a decade, says he expects the vote to be "very tight".
Opinion polls may not be published for a month before polling day, but the last survey by the ILRES institute for RTL television in early June showed support had fallen dramatically from 75 percent in March, with 55 percent of voters who had made their minds up still in favour.
All other EU states that planned referendums have postponed them since the French rejected the treaty by 55 percent on May 29 and the Dutch by an emphatic 62 percent on June 1.
But Luxembourg, a founder member and seat of several EU institutions including the European Court of Justice and the European Investment Bank, chose to go ahead with its July 10 vote to prove its European commitment.
The landlocked country of 451,600 inhabitants, squeezed between Belgium, Germany and France along the Moselle river, is a microcosm of Europe.
Newspapers appear in three national languages - French, German and Letzebuergesch, a dialect of German which is not an official EU language.
There are only 277,400 citizens because 38.6 percent of the population are foreigners, mostly from other EU states.
It is also by far the richest EU member state per capita, thanks to a flourishing banking sector protected by strict secrecy and the huge windfall of EU jobs and living standards.
Cranes whirling over new high-rise office buildings on the Kirchberg plateau overlooking Luxembourg city attest to the continuing central role of the EU in the country's prosperity.
Yet the same doubts that plagued French and Dutch voters are audible at dozens of meetings in town halls, trade union offices and political parties that have drawn record crowds around the picturesque statelet.
Revelling in an underdog status without government funding, the "No" campaign is led mainly by leftists who brand the constitution anti-democratic, antisocial and militaristic.
"A big "No" vote could finally launch an urgently needed fundamental debate about our future direction," said left-wing opponent Andre Hoffmann of the "No" Committee.
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