See also: Plane B (homonymy)

Military jargon

In military Jargon, and by extension in any field, the plane B is the first alternative to the principal plan, to which one will resort if the requirements in the foreground are not met (example: if the climatic conditions are not favorable), or if the principal plan, for an unspecified reason, does not function.

By construction, the plan B is thus a less satisfactory spare wheel for the initiators than the principal plan, but not yet catastrophic: the command still has a plan, it is not yet tiny room to be improvised, all is thus not lost.

It is necessary to distinguish the concept of " B" plan; various alternative scenarios depending on the conditions or decisions at a higher level of command. Indeed, a effective staff produced and evaluates several plans according to the possible situations (red, plane plan green, Plan yellow…), which can each one have their plan B, and even, a plan C, D, E… If the staff produced one plan which does not have an alternative " B" , its competence is doubtful. But it should be noted that, for various political reasons, the person in charge can deny the existence or the relevance of an alternative plan that its services however evaluated and validated. Thus and for example, at the time of the Crisis of the missiles, the American command had presented like only credible possibilities of the very aggressive options (bombardment, invasions) and completely rejected the plan of the Blocus which will however be implemented successfully.

The commander-in-chief, at the last time, will choose the principal plan, and, if necessary, will decide that it is necessary to pass to the alternative " B".

Historical example of Plans b: military strategies of the Austro-Hungarians and the Russians

The military strategies of the two countries, corresponded in the broad outlines to those of Germany. Auriche-Hungary had worked out two plans. The first, known under the name of plan B, consisted in fighting against Serbia in Balkans. The second, the plan R, consisted in fighting on the two faces against Serbia and its allied, Russia.

This last scenario, more probable, provided that the Austro-Hungarians armies would fight at the sides of the German troops, based into Prussia-Eastern. The Austro-Hungarians armies had as an order to launch an attack in the south of Poland, country controlled by Russia, in order to divert the Russian troops of theEastern one.

Russia had also worked out two plans. First of all, if Germany attacked Russia, the Russian armies would spare a defensive war. If however it chose to attack France in first, the Russian troops would go into Prussia-Eastern as quickly as possible.

The strategy of Serbia was determined by the relatively modest size of its armed forces. Its commanders could not, in all being cause, that to carry out a defensive war, by hoping to delay more the possible for a long time its attackers, time that the events or other faces oblige the enemy to withdraw part of its troops of Serbia

The evocation of a “plan B” with the French referendum on the European constitutional treaty of 2005

The expression knew a media fortune in 2005 in France, during the countryside chief clerk in connection with the European Constitutional treaty. Among the arguments incentive with the vote “not” frequently appeared the promise of an alternative, seldom defined, with the TCE, called “Plan B”.

The partisans of the treaty have advanced following the example Jacques Delors, the extreme difficulty of the problem of the renegotiation . When they that they had been opposed before to the preceding treaties such as the Traité of Maastricht or the Traité of Nice, they largely used the argument which a rejection of the TCE would lead only to stagnation in Maastricht-Nice. and its weak European Parliament, its disproportionate rights to vote, political Europe leaded by the rule of the unanimity in many fields…

The opponents with the Treaty them asserted that if Europe were really a need there would be “inevitably” another constitutional attempt, that if she were wished by her people it would be the same. They also estimated that they preferred to keep in the state the current treaties rather, even if they found them bad, than “to engrave in the marble” the future of Europe in a text speaking about “social economy of market” and a “interior market where competition free and is not distorted” (to replace “economic in conformity with the principle of an open market economy where competition is free”). These objectives being included in a text named “constitution” they estimated, although a report/ratio of the Senate showed that the preceding treaties were of the same legal level, that they solidified the economic policy of the European Union definitively because there would be never the unanimity required to modify them (knowing that the existing treaties can them also be renegotiated only unanimously).

Advanced difficulties

To renegotiate a European treaty does not have anything impossible in oneself, but the following difficulties exist:

• To choose a method of development of the text. The preceding treaties were negotiated in a intergovernmental Conférence (IGC) and were generally concluded on the " method of small the pas". The drafting of the TCE on the contrary had been entrusted to a Convention on the future of Europe pluralist, had been opened and independent of the States. The analysis can be made that this method was repudiated and that it is necessary to return with the IGC traditional from there but one can as consider as the " Non" the will of a more democratic development and meeting of a constituent assembly expressed.

• Then, it acts to join together on the same text 25 of the 25 countries of the European Union, like sufficient political families to obtain the support of a majority of the opinion in each country. In particular, several camps are to be taken into account:

- Those which reject the European Union in the name of the primacy of the States. It is the case of the souverainists, of left like Jean-Pierre Chevènement, of right-hand side like Philippe de Villiers, but also of certain Greens in particular in Scandinavia which, as long as the EU rests on bases of promotions of the open market and competition, prefer to maintain the rights of the States by estimating that it preserves a social model to which they hold.

- Those which are satisfied of the Traité of Nice and do not have interest so that substantial changes are born. It is the case of certain liberals but others were favorable to the TCE, French employers as the European employers' regrouping supported the treaty. It is also the case of Country such as Poland which the treaty of Nice favors from the point of view of the distributions of voice of vote (countryside known under the name of " Nice or the mort") but Spain which is in the same case nevertheless voted for.

- Those which are favorable to the European Union but criticize at the same time the institutions of the Traité of Nice and those of the constitutional treaty. It is what founds the " non" of left and ecologist who considers that these two texts rest on same dogmatic the economic liberal one.

- Those which were officially satisfied of the TCE, i.e. the 14 countries which ratified it and corresponded to a majority of the European countries. It is a partly fictitious majority on the democratic level because in certain countries the treaty had not been subjected to referendum. The example of France shows that there can be an important hiatus between the popular will (55% of Not) and the Parliament (80% of Yes) These countries will seek is to save the compromise which the TCE represented, that is to say n the other hand to impose the claims on which they had yielded.

• the range of the modifications made by this possible new text is a true dilemma: it should be sufficiently broad to make change opinion the voters being pronounced against the text, but the constraints evoked previously tend on the contrary so that the approved changes are necessarily limited.

• To succeed in making ratify this text by 25 of the 25 countries

• Between each possible refusal, it is necessary to take into account time put to negotiate/ratify a treaty, which is necessarily spread out over several years

Solutions evoked by the opponents with the constitutional treaty

For Laurent Fabius, the alternative consists in refusing “the contestable Directive S”, to renegotiate the text by preserving the Charter of the basic rights, by arranging the institutional part and by removing that on the economic policies contained in title III. The European Commissioner Jacques Barrot (UMP) declares on this subject: “To remove part III of the constitutional treaty? The good deal: it would continue to apply in its current form, resulting from the treaty of Nice”. This is however not completely true since part III also contained the passage to the Procédure of joint decision and in the majority qualified of many fields, of the ecological and social measures " transversales" , article 122 on the service of general economic interest in the European Union… see Principal changes between the Treaty of Rome of 2004 and the treaty of Nice for more details.

Solutions evoked by the partisans of the constitutional treaty

The first Belgian minister Guy Verhofstadt calls with the creation of the the United States d' Europe in a book published in 2006.

The ratio Duff/Voggenhuber

The most advanced attempt to start again the European Union up to now came from an initiative of the the European Parliament carried out by the English liberal Andrew Duff and the Austrian ecologist Johannes VOGGENHUBER.

Extremely ambitious, the report/ratio hoped:

• That the study period decided by the European Council in June 2005 makes it possible to distinguish the provisions which, in the constitutional treaty, makes consensus, of those which lend to controversy and were in the middle of the campaigns chief clerks.
• That this study period leads to the convocation of a new Convention charged to work again on these points of disagreement, the end result having to be subjected to an advisory vote in all the EU at the same time as the next European elections in 2009.

Duff and Voggenhuber do not manage to convince the deputies of their approach. The final report of the European Parliament is satisfied to leave open all the possibilities to advance, while posting its preference for the maintenance of the existing text.

This retry was criticized very hard by the group Indépendance/Démocratie like by the Communists. The Bundestag (German Parliament) very quickly meant in the European Parliament that such an initiative of constitutional reform was not in its competences, which is exact, the TCE not having been ratified.

The plan D

The most structured reaction European institutions was the advertisement of the plan D (Democracy, Dialog and Debate) in December 2005

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