Irish voters have rejected the EU's treaty of Lisbon in a referendum, the government acknowledged yesterday, potentially scuppering EU reform plans.
Irish Justice Minister Dermot Ahern conceded the vote shortly after noon as tallies from around the country showed the treaty had been defeated in an overwhelming number of constituencies.
“It looks like this will be a ‘no’ vote,” Ahern told RTE television. “At the end of the day, for a myriad of reasons, the people have spoken.”
Ireland is one of the most pro-European countries in the bloc and the only one to entrust its voters with a referendum on the treaty, which replaces an EU constitution rejected by Dutch and French voters in 2005.
RTE said tallies showed the treaty would be carried only in a handful of constituencies, mainly in the capital Dublin.
The victory for the “no” camp means a country with fewer than 1 percent of the EU’s 490 million population could wreck a treaty painstakingly negotiated over years by leaders of all 27 member states.
“If the Irish people decide to reject the treaty of Lisbon, naturally, there will be no treaty of Lisbon,” French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said late on Thursday.
However, other French officials have said work on the treaty could continue. France assumes the rotating EU presidency in a matter of weeks and was supposed to be in charge of setting up the new system which would take effect at the start of next year.
The treaty, intended to make the EU stronger and more effective, had the backing of the three main political parties in Ireland, which has prospered under EU membership. Farmers groups, businesses and many labor unions also backed it.
On polling day bookmakers were still taking bets, giving it overwhelming odds to pass.
But while the country ranks in surveys as one of the EU’s most pro-European states, opponents say the treaty reduces small countries’ clout and gives Brussels new foreign and defense policy powers that undermine Ireland’s historic neutrality.
It was not the first time Irish voters have shocked the EU. They almost wrecked the bloc’s plans for eastward expansion in 2001 by rejecting the treaty of Nice, but the government staged a second referendum in which that pact passed.
The government has said it is not considering a re-run this time around.
The treaty of Lisbon envisages a long-term president of the European Council of EU leaders, a stronger foreign policy chief and a mutual defense pact.
Fourteen countries have already ratified the treaty in their national parliaments.
EU leaders meeting in Brussels next week are expected to reaffirm their commitment to it and may ask Ireland to indicate how it intends to proceed.
That would put the onus on Dublin either to seek changes, opt-outs or assurances and put them to a second referendum, or to find a way to allow the others to proceed with the key reforms without Ireland.
France’s European affairs minister said yesterday that the EU could negotiate a “legal arrangement” with Ireland to avert a crisis.
“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,” Jean-Pierre Jouyet told LCI television. “We cannot take a country out of Europe that has been there for 35 years. But we can find specific means of cooperation.”
French President Nicolas Sarkozy separately declined to comment on the early results of the Irish referendum but said he had agreed with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to issue a joint statement on the outcome.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not