Ireland said ‘No’, what happens next?

It is hard to imagine that others would just say “too bad, one country said ‘no’ to the proposal therefore let us just forget about the reforms and try to stick to the existing system forever”.

All of the European Union countries want reforms to take place. That includes also the participants of the campaign against the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland, who said they would like to come up with a better solution.

So what should be done? First of all, Ireland should hold serious internal debates in order to realize clearly what specifically upset them in the Lisbon Treaty.

As it looks, the major issue is not about giving the additional powers to the parliament or about a better targeted fight against the climate change, it is about other things. When Ireland would be able to identify the problems it may ask for assistance of other EU countries in this regard.

Denmark

In the end, the solution is similar to the one Denmark has found after the first rejection of the Maastricht Treaty. The Danes showed the entire Europe that they do not want to accept the full scale of views however they were willing to seek for a compromise.

The Danes identified four clauses in the Maastricht Treaty they could not agree with and other countries made steps towards them (actually, without changing the Treaty itself) and Denmark agreed with the Treaty with the majority of the votes in the course of the new referendum later on.

Certain issues, which were addressed in the course of the debates in Ireland could be resolved, moreover that they were provoked by unjustified fears.

The Treaty does not influence the laws on abortions in Ireland, the size of taxation, does not impose obligations to send troops to the European army and does not change the European Union Treaty on Agriculture in the framework of the World Trade Organisation.

These kind of fears could be left without grounds without the need to change the Treaty itself, it could be done via clarification declaration or, if necessary, via adopting a supplementary protocol.

Lost EuroCommissaire

Other issues might be more complicated. Ireland would lose one European Commissaire (before 2014 it is planned to equal the number of European Commissaires delegated from each EU Member State regardless of its size), however it would be hard to predict a special attitude towards Ireland.

In the end, in their time, Ireland, together with other small EU countries were fighting for the clause regarding equal rotation regardless of the country size.

At this moment it is worth paying attention that the existing agreements that would remain unchanged and would require the reduction in the number of Commissaires in the European Commission however without the agreed system of rotation and already in 2009.

However in any case it is possible to review all issues put forward by Ireland. It would only be better if this could be achieved without the necessity to amend the Lisbon Treaty, which would lead to gathering another Interstate Commission and another ratification of the Treaty by all the countries (there are already 20 states that went through this procedure).

New referendum

One shouldn’t fall for Euroskeptics opinions that it would be impossible to hold the new referendum in a democratic manner.

It is only natural that when 27 EU Member States differ in their positions to ask the state that is in minority to review its decision, in particular, when all controversial issues are resolved. It would be truly undemocratic to allow one country to prevail among others.

Indeed, noone is willing to hold a larger number of debates and negotiations regarding the details in composition and functioning of the EU bodies. To adopt a decision which would satisfy all 27 member states would be uneasy task. However it would be worse to reject all reforms.

Noone is aiming for a malfunctioning Union. Noone would benefit from ignoring the necessary reforms.