Brussels' last chance to pretend, ehemm, show it cares

The Irish “No” vote to the referendum on the Lisbon treaty proves that, once again, that the European peoples are incapable of deciding for themselves. As a matter of fact, Europe acknowledged that as well a few years ago, when they decided to resubmit the consitutitonal treaty - in its new, improved and watered down version (a.k.a. the Lisbon treaty) - to PARLIAMENTARY vote because, well, the French and Dutch were deemed too immature to decide for themselves because voting NO was obviously the wrong answer.

(I will agree to one part of the argument: the French voted “No to Turkey in the EU” regardless of what was in the treaty... And in Ireland, the vote regarded “No to abortion, No to high taxes, No to a European army” - none of which were, of course, in the Treaty. Dumbasses.)

The ongoing EU summit in Brussels, with a preliminary agenda of cool stuff like food crisis and oil prices, is now bogged down to discuss the Euro 2008 games and ways to circumvent the silly silly Irish rejection.

Funny it would come from Ireland, the only country holding a referendum, and which is barely sobering up from its intoxication on EU structural funds and Common Agricultural Policy money.

As a hardcore institutionalist, I believe that EU treaties are too important to be left to referenda (sorry, you 400 million European citizens - you can’t think for yourselves).

In the same time, this very example is proof that Brussels has to make a decision about how it’s going to run the lives of these 400 million - NOW.

Is it going to pretend that it actually gives a crap about the opinion of the voters, and tweak the treaty - AGAIN - to resubmit it to the Irish?

OR is it going to push through anyway, convincing the Irish to vouch for the agreement in the parliament, y basta?

With the need for a unanimous vote of 27 countries - including the Eastern European peewees who were admitted to the Varsity league, somehow - it’s going to be mad to try to renegotiate anything in this agreement.

I foresee the French presidency, which takes over in less than 2 weeks, will spend a long time discussing voting process and maybe, just maybe, submitting an idea either more relaxed (non-unanimous) voting procedures, or just a ‘Two-speeds Europe’. (again).

And it won’t be pretty. Especially when you have the peewees whining about “we don’t want to be pressured” to quote the Czech minister for European Affairs, or the Lithuanian president using the term ‘bully’ and then quickly changing it to ‘pressure us’...