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WORLD> Europe
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Ireland rejects EU treaty
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-06-13 23:54 DUBLIN - Irish voters dealt a stunning blow to Europe's grand reform plans Friday by rejecting a new EU treaty, nearly complete results showed, plunging the bloc into a fresh period of institutional crisis.
With 38 of 43 constituences counted after a referendum Thursday, 53.7 percent of voters had rejected the Lisbon Treaty, designed to replace the EU constitution after it was torpedoed by French and Dutch voters three years ago. "The Lisbon treaty is finished," said Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, whose Republican movement was the only one in parliament to campaign against the EU treaty. "It looks like this will be a 'no' vote," admitted Justice Minister Dermot Ahern, calling the vote "disappointing" but conceding: "For a myriad of reasons, the people have spoken." Opponents of the treaty were cautiously celebrating, as results rolled in from across the country. "It is a great and proud day to be an Irishman and a European. It is a great day for democracy," said Irish tycoon Declan Ganley, who been a key figure in the "no" campaign ahead of Thursday's poll. Ireland's roughly three million voters effectively held the future direction of the entire EU -- population nearly 500 million -- in their hands as the Lisbon Treaty needs approval by all 27 EU member states. Rejection leaves the EU -- whose leaders meet for a summit in Brussels next week -- facing a new crisis like that which followed the 2005 Franco-Dutch snub to the EU constitution. France's European affairs minister Jean-Pierre Jouyet said the EU could negotiate a "legal arrangement" with Ireland to avert a crisis if the Irish 'no' vote were confirmed as winner. "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," the French minister told LCI television. Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek warned that the Irish result would lead to "political complications." Ireland has caused upsets in EU referendums before. In 2001, its voters rejected the Nice Treaty, a result overturned in a second poll the following year. Backers of the treaty, which aims to make EU decision-making more efficient, struggled to get their message across, despite a campaign backed by all bar one of the main political parties. With many Irish people complaining that they do not understand what the treaty is about, pre-referendum opinion polls had placed the "yes" and "no" camps virtually neck-and-neck. |
