Will Ireland Be Forced to Ratify EU Treaty?

Ireland: the country that brought down the European Union!!

Well, maybe not. (Disclaimer: I'm an Irish-American.) But Irish voters shot down the Lisbon Treaty, which would have created a president for the EU and brought the member states closer together in terms of policy, etc. Taoiseach Brian Cowen urged passage of the referendum, but the majority of Irish voters felt that they risked giving up too much of their autonomy by entering into such a treaty. (Incidentally, due to the laws of each of the member states, Ireland was the only EU country where voters were allowed to decide on the treaty's ratification.)

Cowen issued a response after the vote results came in:

"...In a democracy, the will of the people as expressed at the ballot box is sovereign. The Government accepts and respects the verdict of the Irish people.

The rejection of the proposal to change our Constitution so that we could ratify the Lisbon Treaty is a source of disappointment to my Government colleagues, and to me.

...As Taoiseach, I wish to make it clear to our European partners that Ireland has absolutely no wish to halt the progress of a Union, which has been the greatest force for peace and prosperity in the history of Europe. Equally, we still share the goal of a Union fit for purpose in this century. We will take the time to explain this to our partners in Europe and the wider international community."

The Sun newspaper in Britain, which encouraged a "no" vote and blasted Prime Minister Gordon Brown for vowing to push the treaty through anyway, has a detailed piece claiming that "arrogant European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso" will press ahead with ratification, too, despite the will of the Irish voters (and who knows what the voters' will was in the other countries).

Reuters has a comprehensive follow-up on others within the EU claiming that the treaty is still alive, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy referring to the sole democratic treaty rejection as the "Irish incident," plus the reaction of paper's such as Belgium's Le Soir, which said that now "the idea is to completely isolate Ireland."