That's what the headline in Spain's leading daily El País said this afternoon. But is it true?
In case you haven't been following, Ireland is the only country in the European Union to hold a public referendum on the Lisbon treaty. This is required by the Irish constitution; every other European country will
ratify the treaty (or not, although most seem likely to do so) in
parliament.
Irish voters went to the polls yesterday, and the results were tallied today: the treaty was voted down by 53% to 47%. Turnout was moderate: 53%.
The Lisbon treaty is a slightly-scaled-back second attempt at a European constitution. It would make it easier to pass Europe-wide laws without consensus among countries. Critics see this as concentrating ever more power in Brussels-based institutions with little accountability to people in, say, Galway or Bilbao. Proponents say it will "streamline" decision-making. The treaty also shrinks the number of European commissioners, among other changes
.
The treaty, meanwhile, also would give legal force to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which includes such social and civil rights as the right to strike or the right to health care, although it is unclear how those would be enforced.
Much pressure was brought on the Irish government by other European leaders to secure a Yes vote. Almost all major political parties in Ireland supported the treaty, along with major business groups. (Sinn Féin, a left-nationalist party, is an exception.)
So why didn't it pass?
It is
clear from multi-year opinion polls that Irish people
are very pro-European and support the EU project in greater
numbers than in many other countries. Indeed, according to the latest Eurobarometer poll, more people in Ireland (87%) than in any other EU country said their country had benefited from membership. But they didn't support this
treaty.
As the Economist pointed out this week, the 26 other European governments, if they were honest, would admit that they would struggle to secure a Yes vote, too. And from reports I read from Ireland today, it is definitely
emerging that more working class and rural voters voted no, with more wealthy constituencies voting yes.
Dublin MEP Mary Lou MacDonald said the strong No vote indicated that
there was "a deep sense that the Government isn't serious about our
position as a neutral state" and that people had declined to back the treaty because of a "sense of a loss of power."
Socialist Party leader Joe Higgins said the vote was a "huge rebuff to the political establishment" but a
vindication of the rights of "tens of millions of workers" in the
EU. Higgins said he believed the No side had "won the
argument," despite the fact that the main political parties and "big
business" supported the treaty.
"Certainly from the
point of view of the Socialist Party, the key elements that we raised,
of concern about public services, militarisation and worker rights and
the race to the bottom, they got a key echo among working people and in
working class areas, and that was shown quite clearly in the result.
"This
is not a disaster, which they have been trying to make out. In fact,
this can be a rallying call for workers throughout Europe who have been
at the brunt of this neoliberal juggernaut from the EU in terms of
privatisation of services, attacking their pension rights, attacking
the idea of a decent wage and a proper job."
Even the Economist, hardly an opponent of neoliberalism or privitization, argued, "True friends do not become pariahs just because they disagree with you.
If nobody can find more convincing arguments in favour of the Lisbon
treaty, the EU as a whole may yet find itself whistling in the dark."