By Andrew Grice in Brussels
Today's summit of European Union leaders was supposed to mark the moment when they stopped the "navel-gazing" about the way the EU functions and turned their attention to real world issues such as rising oil and food prices. Fat chance. The "no" vote in Ireland on the EU's Lisbon Treaty (designed to streamline EU decision making now the club has expanded to 27 members) has plunged the leaders back into....yet another round of navel-gazing.
There is a fair amount of double-speak at these summits. Here, the other EU leaders insist they are not putting pressure on Ireland to overturn the "no" vote so the stalled treaty (which requires approval by all 27 countries) can be implemented.
Yet behind the scenes they seem to be doing just that. The leaders say they are not setting a deadline for Ireland to chart a way out of the mess. Yet they have told the Irish Government to find one by the next EU summit in October.
They say they are not demanding a second referendum yet privately are talking up one next year. The Irish are understandably feeling a bit bruised. Brian Cowen the Prime Minister, told the summit the economic outlook (a factor in the "no" vote alongside concerns about the EU's direction) might not be much better next year - a hint of his concern about the dangers of another referendum and a second "no" which could spell the end of his Government.
As ever, the summit will come up with a form of words all members of the club can live with but the behind-the-scenes tensions are clear. The treaty may well be needed to improve the way the EU works. But the hasty manoeuvring to get Ireland into line since last week's referendum is not a very good advert for the EU and is hardly likely to boost the prospects of a "yes" vote if a second vote is held.
How and why would a second "no" spell the end of Brian Cowen's government?
Posted by: Frank | Friday, 20 June 2008 at 12:17 PM
Funny how any country that gave the 'correct' answer has never been asked again...
Posted by: James | Friday, 20 June 2008 at 12:22 PM
The treaty is dead. Ireland will not stand for this thinly veiled bullying. Any repeat of the referendum will deliver a resounding no and Brian Cowen knows this
Posted by: colgle | Friday, 20 June 2008 at 12:27 PM
If the rest of the EU ratifies the treaty then Ireland should leave the EU.
Posted by: Anon | Friday, 20 June 2008 at 12:32 PM
Robert Mugabe earned some well deserved criticism for less than democratic procedure when he declared the recent Zimbabwe elections invalid as the result did not please him. Suggesting an arbitrarily slim margin was, of course, just a technique for claiming transparent "credibility". This technique comes in numerous shapes and forms.
Apparently Europe has not managed to make much headway along similar lines, however long traditions of democracy can be boasted. The Irish have had their say. A "yes" vote would no doubt have been embraced with no further questions asked. Now then, where is the point in holding "elections" Mugabe style or, correspondingly, in the former Soviet Union fashion, where the outcome was decided before staging a farce?
When voting for or against joining the EU many of us expected it to be essentially a matter of free movement of people/labour and money within the realm of the Union with basically just the legal streamlining necessary for such objectives. But upon this followed a profusion of sometimes blatant and not infrequently very costly interference with issues, many of which had never been contentious. At least many of us were taken aback with this. Directives have been issued e.g. for what shape a quite edible cucumber should have not to be discarded. Perhaps we soon will have people from Lapland participating in directives for vineyards and the Portuguese tip the scale in some matter pertaining to Nordic ski resorts. (Please forgive me if some of this already has happened without me noticing.)
At least morally it would feel timely and appropriate for citizens in various more or less independent EU countries to be provided with an opportunity to reassess whether they want to remain in the EU machinery that seems to take increasingly monstrous forms whilst foraging tax money. By now we have a significantly better idea of what we would be voting for than during the ignorance prevailing well over a decade ago when we made less than informed personal choices at the polls.
Posted by: Per-Erik Bredbacka | Friday, 20 June 2008 at 01:21 PM
Why do we need an "ever-closer union"? What's wrong with keeping the one we've got? Pass a minor reform to support further expansion, and let's otherwise leave the current EU in place for a decade. Why the insistence from both sides that we must ditch the current EU, in favor of either the Lisbon Treaty or none at all?
Posted by: Czech Citizen | Friday, 20 June 2008 at 01:55 PM
There are now millions of high taxpayers in the UK alone who have never been consulted on any issue regarding the EU and they along with the rest of us are understandably very annoyed that we in the UK have been denied the promised referendum. The indecent haste with which Brown ratified and the snivelling ingratiating immediate presentation of the finished article to his EU cronies has caused immense and lasting hatred of him and has seriously damaged the EU cause. He must now resign and the process started again if at all necessary. Otherwise review the whole basis of the present EU and bring it into this century. It's presently lndlocked into the deep past.
Posted by: john keating | Friday, 20 June 2008 at 04:04 PM
The Lisbon Treaty is in the process of being approved by every elected parliament (including the Irish). By no stretch of the imagination, therefore, can the treaty be regarded as undemocratic, unless one perverts the meaning of democracy in a way that totally undermines national governments and parliaments.
Eurosceptics can legitimately criticise the Lisbon treaty, but certainly not on the basis of its being undemocratic.
Ireland and even the Czech Republic should leave if all other nations pass the treaty. If they feel like they want to be a part of the Union they can agree to the treaty then.
Posted by: Anon | Saturday, 21 June 2008 at 04:09 AM
Why won't the EU take "No" for an answer? Astonishingly, they seem determined not to!
If a majority of Irish people say "No" in a poll, that's their answer. And that is what their employees (ie their government) should, as employees, respect. Indeed, in the world of work, employees who act as if they don't respect their employers' decisions are asking for trouble. But in the mad world of the EU, astonishingly it seems to be the other way round.
The contemptible political establishment of "euro-quislings" throughout the EU can't see this basic truth. They seem to think that the people of the EU are there for the EU's benefit, not the other way round. Unless the EU's staff & political leaders get real, & accept the people's leadership on everything, rather than the self-appointed EU-deceivers always trying to lead EU citizens in directions that they show in votes (ie in France & Holland in 2005, & now in Ireland in 2008), then it would be better for the whole horror-show EU experiment be wound up as the anti-democratic disaster that it has always been.
Don't lets' hear any more drivel about "Britain winning its corner in Europe". It isn't, & never will. Let's leave the EU horrow-show now, while we still have our country!
Posted by: Agincourt | Sunday, 22 June 2008 at 11:10 AM