Germany and France moved to isolate Ireland in the European Union yesterday, scrambling for ways to resuscitate the Lisbon Treaty a day after the Irish dealt the architects of the EU's new regime a crushing blow. Refusing to take Ireland's 'no' for an answer, politicians in Berlin and Paris prepared for a crucial EU summit in Brussels this week by trying to ringfence the Irish while demanding that the treaty be ratified by the rest of the EU. The scene is now set for a major clash between the Irish and their European partners after a Dublin minister and sources in the ruling Fianna Fail party ruled out any chance of a second Irish referendum on the treaty.
Refusing to take Ireland's 'no' for an answer, politicians in Berlin and Paris prepared for a crucial EU summit in Brussels this week by trying to ringfence the Irish while demanding that the treaty be ratified by the rest of the EU.
The scene is now set for a major clash between the Irish and their European partners after a Dublin minister and sources in the ruling Fianna Fail party ruled out any chance of a second Irish referendum on the treaty.
It is catch-22. Without reforming the way it makes decisions, freeing itself to act on global issues that really matter, the European Union will continue to look like a self-serving, arcane bureaucracy. But the EU can't negotiate the devilishly detailed process of reforming itself without resembling the conspiratorial caricature portrayed by its detractors. That portrayal is the one that persuaded Irish voters to reject the Lisbon treaty last week. The Irish 'No' campaign was a broad coalition of contradictory interests. Many of the arguments were unique to Ireland. But the overarching theme - suspicion of a process that appears to serve elites more than ordinary people - resonates across the Continent. Pro-Europeans lament that the Lisbon treaty was derailed by a majority of 100,000, a minute fraction of the EU population. But they cannot credibly deny that those voters reflect a much larger constituency. Paradoxically, Europeans seem to be converging around a common scepticism.
That portrayal is the one that persuaded Irish voters to reject the Lisbon treaty last week. The Irish 'No' campaign was a broad coalition of contradictory interests. Many of the arguments were unique to Ireland. But the overarching theme - suspicion of a process that appears to serve elites more than ordinary people - resonates across the Continent.
Pro-Europeans lament that the Lisbon treaty was derailed by a majority of 100,000, a minute fraction of the EU population. But they cannot credibly deny that those voters reflect a much larger constituency. Paradoxically, Europeans seem to be converging around a common scepticism.
The Government wants the Lords to ignore the Irish "No" vote and go ahead and ratify the Treaty, even though it cannot now come into law, as planned, on January 1, 2009 - and will probably never come into law in its present form. By any conceivable test of democratic procedure, the House of Lords should vote to put Treaty ratification on ice, at least until there is an agreed EU policy as to how to handle the Irish "No" vote. To simply plough ahead on a straight vote to accept or reject the EU (Amendment) Bill is to demonstrate nothing less than a contempt for the democracy on which the European Union is supposed to be founded.
To simply plough ahead on a straight vote to accept or reject the EU (Amendment) Bill is to demonstrate nothing less than a contempt for the democracy on which the European Union is supposed to be founded.
