Franco-German move against Ireland
Sunday June 15 2008
Europe's "big two", Germany and France, have moved to isolate Ireland after the No vote to Lisbon.
France's Europe Minister Jean-Pierre Jouyet said a search was on for a way to accommodate the Irish verdict without derailing plans to implement the treaty that aims to change the way the EU is run and gives the Union its first sitting president and foreign minister.
The Franco-German plan, to be refined at this week's summit, is to get all 26 EU states to ratify the treaty, to quarantine the Irish and then come up with some legal manoeuvre enabling the treaty to go ahead. It is not yet clear how, or if, this will succeed.
"The legal situation is clear,' said a European Commission official. "Unless the treaty is ratified by all, there is no treaty."
Mr Jouyet said that "specific means of co-operation" could be invoked to deal with Ireland. "The most important thing is that the ratification process must continue in the other countries, and then we shall see with the Irish what type of legal arrangement could be found.
"We're sticking firmly to our goal of putting this treaty into effect," said the German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, "so the process of ratification must continue."
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said: "We must carry on."
The Franco-German refusal to countenance defeat may run into opposition in Scandinavia and eastern Europe, while in Britain the opposition Conservatives will continue to pound Prime Minister Gordon Brown over his refusal to stage a referendum.
