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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Carragher who wrote (254258)	6/13/2008 12:32:15 PM
From: gamesmistress	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793615

The "Noes" were 53.4%. Not overwhelming, but not razor-thin either. EU Ambitions Dealt Major Setback As Irish Voters Reject Lisbon Treaty By MARC CHAMPION Wall Street Journal June 13, 2008 12:27 p.m. Voters in Ireland appear to have derailed European Union plans aimed at making the bloc a stronger global player, in a stunning rebuff to the world's largest economic and political union. Irish leaders conceded Friday that voters had rejected the so-called Lisbon Treaty in the only popular vote that will be held on the treaty by any EU nation. Electoral officials said Irish voters have rejected the European Union reform treaty with a national "No" vote of 53.4%. The result jeopardizes plans for the EU to appoint its first president, create an EU diplomatic service under a single foreign-affairs chief and win greater powers to legislate in areas such as immigration. The treaty would also make it easier for the bloc, which has grown to 27 countries from 15 in 2003, to make decisions by reducing the number of areas that require unanimity. Loss of the Lisbon Treaty would have little impact on monetary policy, competition, tax or trade policy, areas where the EU has become an important force for global business. But Ireland's vote is a major blow to the political ambitions of the EU, often derided as economic giant but a foreign policy pygmy. The vote has again exposed deep public skepticism over the bloc's direction. This is the third time in as many years that voters asked to approve the direction the EU is taking have refused. French and Dutch voters rejected the EU's draft constitution in 2005, forcing EU leaders to strip down the draft constitution, rename it as the Lisbon Treaty, and try again. EU leaders now have to figure out what to do next. To rescue the treaty, they will need all 26 other EU countries to complete ratification and then either persuade Ireland to vote again, or find a legal loophole to let the treaty go forward without Irish ratification. "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," Jean-Pierre Jouyet, France's Europe minister, said on television Friday. Much will depend on U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has been under fierce political pressure to offer Britons a referendum on the treaty he would likely lose. The U.K. parliament is due to complete ratification next week. [Irish officials count ballots for the Lisbon Treaty referendum in Dublin. Substantial election returns showed that Ireland's voters have rejected the European Union reform treaty.] AFP/Getty Images Officials count ballots for the Lisbon Treaty referendum in Dublin. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other EU government leaders have been lobbying Mr. Brown in recent weeks to press ahead with ratification in the event of an Irish no, according the senior German official. Without the treaty, the EU's further expansion into the Balkans, Turkey and the ex-Soviet Union is on hold, the official said. The treaty's loss would also be likely to revive efforts at creating a "two speed" Europe, in which an inner core of countries integrate at their own speed and allow others to follow, politicians and analysts say. Mr. Sarkozy will be particularly hard hit by the Irish rejection. France takes over the EU's rotating presidency next month. Mr. Sarkozy has ambitious plans to secure a new EU pact on immigration, name the EU's first president, and make a breakthrough in efforts to consolidate the EU's inefficient defense sector, a project strongly supported by U.S. President Bush. Rescuing the treaty, however, may prove politically difficult. Ireland accounts for just 1% of the EU's population of 490 million, but it was the only country to offer its people a vote on whether to ratify the treaty, giving their vote an outsized democratic significance. It had to carry out the vote by law. "Second time round, after the rejections of the constitution, this is a major setback," said Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European studies at Oxford University. "Fundamentally the question this raises is does Europe know what story it wants to tell? What's this [the EU] all for? Why do we need these institutions?" The EU's existence is not under threat, politicians and analysts say. They note that even since the French and Dutch rejections of 2005, the bloc has continued to function and that popular resistance from citizens in older countries may in part be a function of the EU success in driving forward major projects. Within the last ten years, the EU has launched the euro, widely considered a success, opened up internal borders for free travel and expanded to include 10 countries from the former communist bloc. Countries such as Croatia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine and Georgia are lining up at the door to be let in.