A "No" vote supporter celebrates the Irish rejection of the EU Reform Treaty. (Reuters)
BRUSSELS — The European Union has been plunged into crisis following Ireland's rejection of the bloc's reform treaty with newspapers fearing the crisis could lead to the bloc's collapse.
"It's a significant political headache but not a significant economic issue for the time being," Holger Schmieding, an economist at Bank of America in London, told Reuters.
Ireland voted "no" to the Lisbon Treaty by 53.4 percent to 46.6 percent Thursday, sending the 27-member bloc into a tailspin.
"It is obvious that we are in an uncertain situation," said Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller.
"I regret this result because the Lisbon Treaty is a good treaty and is the result of many years of negotiations between the European countries."
The Lisbon treaty was designed to replace the EU constitution torpedoed by French and Dutch voters in 2005.
Ireland was the only EU country to hold a public vote on the treaty.
Ireland's Prime Minister Brian Cowen said there could be "no quick fix" after his country voted down the treaty.
"We must not rush to conclusions... The Union has been in this situation before and each time has found an agreed way forward," he said.
"There is no quick fix," he added.
But the president of the EU's executive arm, Jose Manuel Barroso, insisted that the treaty was still "alive".
"As a supporter of the treaty, the European Commission would have hoped for another result. However, we respect the outcome of the referendum."
Baroso said EU leaders will discuss the crisis at a summit next week, urging other countries to continue the ratification process.
The EU has spent a decade agonizing over how to reform its institutions to cope with its near doubling in size from 15 to 27 members, and to the emergence of new challenges in foreign and defense policy, energy and climate change.
Collapse
European newspapers welcomed Ireland's "no" vote but feared that the result could lead to the bloc's collapse, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"It would be more sensible to put the Lisbon treaty on ice for several years, and try to rescue those parts that are important, uncontentious, and capable of being carried out without treaty amendment," said The Financial Times.
"That does not include creating a semi-permanent president of the European Council, but it does mean beefing up an EU diplomatic service, and giving more resources to the EU high representative for foreign affairs."
Britain's The Times described the vote as a victory against "a process hitherto shrouded in jargon and pushed along by the civil servants who invented it".
The daily predicted acute tensions between EU leaders when they meet in Brussels next week but warned against horse-trading to repackage the treaty, urging them to pay heed to the Irish.
The Sun tabloid urged British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to hold a referendum on the treaty.
"Ireland proved that when given a say, most people don't like the way Europe is run. They've had enough of being lied to, cheated and bullied by remote, unaccountable and faceless politicians and bureaucrats," it said.
Britain's biggest-selling newspaper said Brown should "think again" about pushing through the ratification of the treaty, which is currently being debated in the upper House of Lords.
In Germany, the conservative Frankfurter Allgemaine Zeitung said the Irish vote was "regrettable" but also not the "end of the world" for the bloc.
Germany's Die Welt applauded the referendum result.
"The Irish have rejected the EU reform and that's great. Why should they have approved a treaty that no-one explained the benefits of?"
Newspapers in France, which takes over the bloc's rotating presidency next month, said the result means President Nicolas Sarkozy has his work cut out for him.
"France has often been the motor for building Europe. The ball is in its court", wrote the leftist Liberation.
However, it suggested a change of strategy, as it said the Irish vote shows Europe "needs democracy, education. It needs to bring people in on its construction".