French President Nicolas Sarkozy was expected to face anger on the streets, and diplomatic annoyance across the table, when he traveled to Ireland yesterday to sound out ways of reversing the Irish voters’ rejection of the EU reform treaty.
Sarkozy emphasized beforehand he would “come to Dublin to listen and understand” why the Irish voted to reject the Lisbon Treaty and its painstakingly negotiated provisions for reshaping EU institutions and powers.
But Irish nationalists to the left and right have accused the reigning president of the European Council of having his mind made up — by declaring last week, to a meeting of his own party’s lawmakers, that Ireland must vote again.
“Sarkozy, respect the Lisbon vote! No means no,” read posters in Dublin calling for anti-treaty activists to protest as Sarkozy met Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen.
Cowen and his deputies publicly say Sarkozy has a right to say that Ireland must vote again — but privately fume that French comments helped fuel the 53 percent “no” vote on June 12 and are making it tougher to stage a second referendum next year.
Ireland is the only EU member constitutionally required to subject treaties to a national vote, and an EU treaty cannot become law unless every member ratifies it.
Irish government officials point with particular irritation to French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner’s highly publicized declaration, three days before the vote, that Ireland would be “the first to suffer” if it voted no.
Officials in both Dublin and Paris have viewed Sarkozy’s visit with nervousness ever since he declared his intention to search for a quick solution to the treaty uncertainty by traveling to the Irish capital.
Organizers backed off plans for Sarkozy to speak in public with leaders of myriad anti-treaty groups at an Irish government-organized venue for discussing EU matters, the National Forum on Europe, which is the usual venue for visiting European dignitaries and open to the media.
Instead, France planned to host a miniature version of the Forum on Europe behind closed doors in its embassy in Dublin. Leaders of about 15 political parties and pressure groups were invited, but many others with prominent roles in the referendum campaign were left out.
Opposition leaders who, like the government, campaigned in vain for an Irish “yes” complained of being treated dismissively by the French. On Saturday, Sarkozy’s Dublin schedule was changed to permit separate meetings with the heads of the two major opposition parties, Fine Gael’s Enda Kenny and Labour’s Eamon Gilmore.
But Gilmore said on Sunday he still had not received a formal invitation, and planned to meet Sarkozy only if promised more than “a three or four minute, in and out the door.”
In a written Q&A with the Irish Times newspaper published on Saturday, Sarkozy ruled out a new round of 27-nation negotiations to produce a replacement for the Lisbon Treaty.
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