Cheers, b9okmarking
That is exactly how they always do it here in Belgium. First of all, a referendum is not legally binding here — while it is legally binding in the Netherlands and most other European countries — which means that even if the government decides to organize a referendum, then they always have the legal right to ignore its outcome. Secondly, I have never known there to be an official government referendum here during my adult life. I do remember that there was a referendum in the late 1990s, but this was a referendum organized by the political party known today as Open VLD — which is a private entity — so that was not an official referendum held by the federal or regional governments.
When it came to the ratification by the individual EU member states of the official European Constitution, what you describe is exactly what the Belgian government did. Whereas other countries — the Netherlands, France, Ireland, et al — held a referendum among their people, and after the draft for said European Constitution had as such been rejected by the people of some of these EU member states, the Belgian government decided not to hold a referendum and quickly push the ratification through the federal and regional parliaments, officially out of a concern that the Flemish right-wing extremist party Vlaams Belang ("Flemish Interest") would have sabotaged the referendum out of said party's objections to the EU's invitation of Turkey to become an official EU member state.
(There actually were many legitimate objections against Turkey's EU membership — such as the fact that the Turkish government neither honors nor respects human rights — but being a right-wing extremist party, Vlaams Belang's objections were based upon their claim that Turkey is geographically not part of Europe and that the Turkish people can therefore not ethnically be European.)
At that point in time, the Belgian Federal Prime Minister was Guy Verhofstadt, and the Flemish Regional Minister-President was Patrick Dewael. Both are members of the very pro-EU Open VLD party, which is a Keynesian liberal (ie. pro-capitalism and pro-corporatism) party. And like most of their party members, Verhofstadt and Dewael are both also Freemasons and career politicians — Verhofstadt to a higher degree even, and he has for quite a while already been a member of the European Parliament.
= DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =