EU tries for a cram down despite Irish vote

Observer/Guardian:

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.

Integration minister Conor Lenihan said this weekend that it was unlikely the treaty would be put to the Republic's electorate again. Meanwhile, senior strategists in Fianna Fail said it would be 'politically impossible' for them to try to repeat what happened in 2001-02, when Ireland first rejected the Nice Treaty but then held a second poll which voted in favour of it 12 months later.

'This time around, the turnout was high, so there can be no justification for it. The government is caught in a political trap. There are local as well as European elections in Ireland next year and Fianna Fail will not risk having to hold another referendum. Within the next 12 months at the very least, there is absolutely no chance that Ireland will re-run Lisbon,' one senior Fianna Fail source said.

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The Franco-German plan is to get all 27 EU states to ratify the treaty as soon as possible, to quarantine the Irish and then come up with some legal manoeuvre enabling the treaty to go ahead.

It is not clear yet how or if this will succeed. 'The legal situation is clear,' said a European Commission official. 'Unless the treaty is ratified by all, there is no treaty.'

Jouyet said that 'specific means of co-operation' could be invoked to deal with Ireland. 'The most important thing is that the ratification process must continue in the other countries, and then we shall see with the Irish what type of legal arrangement could be found.'

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The artifice of a treaty was chosen because the EU knew their plan would not be ratified by a vote of the people. What they hoped to do was have the legislatures ratify the treaty and by pass a vote, but eh Irish constitution would not permit that so hey had to have a vote. They appear to be scrambling yet again to thwart the will of the people. That is not an auspicious beginning for a huge bureaucracy.