Depois de 6 anos a redigir um texto. Negociações infindáveis, requerimentos, alterações, revisões e, traduções a União Europeia parecia ter finalmente atingido o seu objectivo: alcançar alguma coisa parecida com uma constituição, o Tratado de Lisboa. Na sequência deste tratado poder-se-ia, até, atingir uma política externa comum, a Europa a uma só voz… algo equivalente a um ministro dos negócios estrangeiros mas …isso não aconteceu.
Primeiro, foi o susto polaco com o presidente Kaczynski a expressar as suas dúvidas e a obrigar o recém-eleito Donald Tusk a um esforço negocial de última hora para impedir o veto presidencial. Agora, foram os 860 000 votos dos irlandeses que bloguearam todo o processo.
Qualquer que seja o desfecho o Tratado de Lisboa não entrará em vigor na data aprazada. A hipótese de realizar um segundo referendo na Irlanda parece arriscada até porque poderia arrastar a novas alterações impostas por britânicos e polacos (por exemplo) num nunca acabar de negociações.
Este bloqueio poderá ser o fim do sonho de uma Europa Unida tal como tem vindo a ser concebida. Este pode ser o momento em que a União Europeia regressa a uma simples aliança económica, uma aliança a várias velocidades com a França e a Alemanha como dinamizadores do processo.
O que eles dizem sobre o Não Irlandês
“Why am I so confident that the Lisbon treaty is going to be implemented? Because, contrary to widespread protestations, Europe’s leaders actually have a plan B. It is not a pretty plan. Just listen to what senior French and German politicians had to say over the weekend. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, suggested on Saturday that one way to implement the treaty was for Ireland to withdraw temporarily from the process of European integration. This is a fairly exotic comment for an otherwise non-exotic minister. I had no idea that that you could temporarily withdraw from the EU and rejoin it later, as though you were buying a forward contract with an option attached. What he is saying in effect is that Ireland should quit the EU.”
Wolfgang Münchau, Finantial Times
If I am an elected politician in Ireland, our highly sensitive electoral system means that I am a slave to middle-ground opinion, especially floating voters. As most middle-ground floating voters are also Yes voters, that leaves me with a simple choice: side with the Yes vote and anchor my voting base in the centre, or side with the Nos. The trouble with the latter strategy is that No voters come from either side of the ideological spectrum. […]
Even if the No vote becomes almost as large as the Yes vote, this is a losing strategy -- because on issues other than Lisbon (taxation, the US arms industry) my No voters are diametrically opposed to each other and I can't unite them in support for me.
Hence, my only option is to side with the Yes voters and appeal to either the left or right by reaching out from the centre to the edge (but not too far).”
Marc Coleman, Sunday Independent
“The idea is not clinically dead yet, of course, although it soon will be. It was misconceived from the start. In fact, it began as the dying gasp of an even older idea, that of a federal Europe, which was the treasured project of the bureaucratic elite that created the European Community for the best of reasons after the Second World War. For that elite, the enlargement of the EU, which expanded from 15 members to 25 four years ago, was an excuse to finish their historic task. For the rest of us, this expansion was proof that a new constitution was unnecessary.[…]
The top reason given for voting "No" in Ireland, by 30 per cent in an Irish Times poll, was: "I don't know what I'm voting for/I don't understand it." Some of the reporting of the referendum hinted that this reflects badly on the Irish. On the contrary, it is entirely rational. If the advocates of the Lisbon Treaty have been unable to explain its benefits – if they have been unable to make a simple case for it to one of the most pro-European electorates in the Union – it did not deserve to pass."
John Rentoul, The Independent
"The Lisbon treaty project ended with the Irish voters' decision and its ratification cannot continue…"
[....a] "victory of freedom and reason over artificial elitist projects and European bureaucracy"[…]"
"Toda a Europa deveria agradecer à Irlanda a derrota de um processo que possibilitaria uma maior unificação e a supressão das nações-estado, a "Europa das regiões", dando azo a uma unificação a partir de cima como é o espírito do Tratado de Lisboa..." (tradução livre)
Vaclav Klaus, Presidente Checo
