The EU is disarrayed by the Irish vote

Foreign Ministers of the European Union countries met in Luxembourg on Monday to discuss further actions after the failure of the Lisbon treaty at the EU referendum in Ireland.

Last Thursday 53.4 % of the Irish voters voted against the treaty, meant to replace the European Constitution, rejected at the referenda held in the Netherlands and in France in 2005. In order to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, Ireland was the only country to call a referendum. There all the basic EU treaties require Constitutional amendments, which could only be adopted by a referendum.

The Treaty had to be ratified by all 27 EU Member States by the 1^st of January 2009 and without approval by all EU Members it wouldn’t enter into force.

A BBC reporter Johnny Diamond noted, that the leaders of the European countries were still stunned by the result of the referendum in Ireland however the prevalent idea among them is to continue with ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in those countries that have not yet done so.

At a meeting in Luxembourg the floor, first of all, would be given to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ireland. “We are not likely to move further in our discussions and we shall not be asking him concrete questions”, said a un-named high level EU diplomat in an interview with the France-Press Agency.

The Prime Minister of Ireland, Brian Cowen, said, that the EU should assist in resolving the current dead-end situation.

France against Eastern Europe

In the meantime the French President Nicola Sarkozy is leaving for Prague to hold negotiations with the leaders of Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. Sarkozy is one of the major supporters of the continuation of ratifications so that the Irish referendum didn’t provoke crisis in the EU.

In Czech Republic Sarkozy will meet with one his major opponents on this issue: the reaction to the Irish vote of the President of this country, Vaclav Klaus was that the Lisbon Treaty was dead and moreover, the European nations should say ‘thank you’ to the Irish for that.

One of the goals, envisaged by the drafters of the Treaty, was facilitation of the expansion of the EU further to the East. This could be achieved via reduction of the European Commission Members, abolition of the right of veto of some countries on a number of issues in general policy sphere and increase of the role of the Chair of the European Council (the Council of the Heads of EU Member States) and of the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy.

The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, has been extended up to 27 persons after the accession of the numerous Eastern European countries and according to the existing rules, each one of them should be responsible for a certain sphere of activities.