EU vows to push reforms

European Union leaders vowed Friday to push ahead with an ambitious reform treaty despite a stunning repudiation of the plan by Irish voters in a national referendum.

The 27-nation bloc was left reeling by the Irish vote, the second time in three years that plans to overhaul the EU and give it a bigger voice on the world stage have been shot down by voters.

“I believe the treaty is alive, and we should now try to find a solution,” Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, told reporters in Brussels after the Irish vote was confirmed.

Irish opponents of the treaty and “Euroskeptics” across the continent were jubilant as the results came in Friday. The “No” vote took 53.4 percent of the vote, despite support for the treaty from Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen and the leaders of the country’s three biggest political parties.

“This is a very clear and loud voice that has been sent yet again by citizens of Europe rejecting the anti-democratic nature of Brussels governance,” said Declan Ganley, the wealthy Irish businessman who helped bankroll the opposition campaign.

“The referendum is the demonstration of the huge unpopularity of the treaty among the people. This is a very dark day for the federalist dream of creating a European centralized superstate,” said Nile Gardiner, a European political specialist at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington.

In Dublin, Mr. Cowen called the vote “a source of disappointment,” but added, “In a democracy, the will of the people as expressed at the ballot box is sovereign.”

Ireland was the only country to put the reform treaty to a popular vote, with all other EU states ratifying the pact in parliament. All 27 countries must accept the treaty before it can take effect.

EU leaders noted that two-thirds of the countries in the bloc have already endorsed the treaty. The lengthy, complex document was designed to streamline the EU’s creaky bureaucracy, create a more powerful chief executive and foreign minister, and eliminate the ability of individual countries to veto EU decisions in a wide range of policy areas.

“This is a setback, but it is not catastrophic. The EU will continue to work because it has very robust institutions,” said Anthony Smallwood from the European Commission’s Washington bureau.

But Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said it is now clear the reforms will not come into force on Jan. 1, 2009, as EU leaders had been hoping.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a joint statement, “We take note of the democratic decision of the Irish citizens with all due respect, even through we regret it.”

The “Lisbon Treaty,” as the overhaul package was known, was itself an effort to resurrect EU reforms after an institutional crisis sparked when French and Dutch voters rejected an even more ambitious EU constitution in 2005.

“It is too early now to say exactly what is going to happen with Ireland,” said political analyst Gaetane Ricard-Nihoul of the Paris-based, EU-centered think tank Notre Europe. “But we must not do the same mistake as after the French and Dutch referendums, when the constitution was simply given up.”

“The lesson today is - when we [suppress] the institutional debate, people reject the treaty. So we should not fear anymore talking about it,” she added.

The Heritage Foundation’s Mr. Gardiner said the Irish rejection will focus even more attention on Britain, where the Labor government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown has resisted calls for a politically difficult national vote on the treaty.

“Now that Irish voters have rejected the treaty, it will put an enormous pressure on [Mr. Brown] to hold a referendum in the U.K. on this issue,” said Mr. Gardiner. “And if Britain votes ’No,’ the text will be definitely dead.”

The rejection poses immediate political headaches for Mr. Sarkozy, as France takes over the EU’s six-month rotating presidency July 1.

“It will have a consequence on the general atmosphere as France was to be the first president to deal with the implementation of the treaty. Of course, it is not going to be the priority anymore, and this is frustrating,” Miss Ricard-Nihoul said.

But she said she did not believe the French EU agenda on such issues as energy, agriculture and immigration would be undermined. “Fortunately, the EU can go forward without the Lisbon Treaty.”

cThis article is based in part on wire service reports.