Luis Sarmento
Porto, Portugal

Oh, and it looks like the ‘No’s have it which will — if nothing else — make European politics a bit more interesting for the next few weeks. The consequences of this decision by less than a million Irish voters (the margin of victory was less than 110,000 votes) could be really quite significant for the other 490 million Europeans.

The enlargement of the EU in recent years has made the existing institutions and structures entirely obsolete. As I’ve made clear every time I’ve talked about this, I support — and am convinced of the need for — widespread reform of the EU. And there are even certain policy areas in which I’m strongly in favour of greater integration. So I’m by no means anti-EU. But I felt that this treaty was taking us down the wrong path.

The thing is though, at least it was a path. Europe could begin to function again had the treaty been adopted. Sure it would have been working towards the wrong goals, but at least it would have been working. For the past five years, pretty much the only thing on the agenda in Europe was this treaty. And we’ve gone and torpedoed it. Is Europe really going to accept another 5 years of treaty negotiations on our say so?

It’s funny listening to the politicians being interviewed on RTE radio though. There’s a sense of genuine confusion that they just can’t hide. Nobody knows what the hell happens next.

One thing’s for sure though… from the standpoint of Irish interests, we should probably have hounded Bertie out of office a few months later than we did. This kind of thing was his strongpoint. I don’t see Cowen arguing the case for Ireland with half the charm or wit of Bertie, nor indeed with a tenth of the “easy diplomacy” Bertie mastered.