It is "risky" to say we'll save Lisbon Treaty: EU presidency

AFP
Monday, June 16, 2008

LUXEMBOURG (AFP) - It would be "risky" for EU nations to declare that they are going to save the EU's Lisbon Treaty, rejected by Irish voters last week, the EU's Slovenian presidency warned Monday.

"It is time for a little bit of thinking and analysis," said Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel as he arrived to host a meeting of his EU counterparts in Luxembourg.

"It would be risky to say we are going to bring the treaty back to life when we are facing a blockade," he told assembled reporters.

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"I don't have any solution. We are going to listen to (Irish Foreign) minister (Micheal) Martin, maybe he has a solution. We are going to wait and think and let us respect the vote that has taken place."

Irish voters, the only ones in the EU to be offered a referendum on the treaty, last week sent the bloc's plans to streamline its institutions into a tailspin by rejecting the text by a resounding 53.4 percent to 46.6 percent. That vote was the third referendum blow in three years to EU plans to make its bureaucracy function smoothly with 27 members.

It could leave the bloc limping along with the Nice Treaty; the inadequate rule book that was signed in 2001 so that the EU could grow but which contained no deeper reform to streamline the system once it had.

Since the results of Thursday's Irish referendum were announced, most EU leaders have insisted that ratification should continue in the eight nations that have not yet endorsed the treaty.

Doing so would put enormous pressure on Ireland to hold a fresh referendum.

The Lisbon Treaty, signed last December in Portugal, would give the EU more majority voting rather than the difficult-to-achieve unanimity required now.

It would also introduce a European Council president for a two-and-a-half year term and a new stronger foreign policy supremo.

But as EU leaders lean toward moving ahead with Lisbon, not for the first time they risk being accused of ignoring their citizens, who are already riled by rising fuel and food prices.

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