French preparing for ‘arrangement’ after Lisbon treaty rejection

If Irish voters reject the Lisbon treaty, as seems likely, France will use its presidency of the EU to find an “arrangement” with Ireland, Europe minster Jean-Pierre Jouyet said on Friday.

According to Le Figaro, Jouyet said that if the referendum result ended in a rejection of the treaty then “there would legally be no treaty” but that it could still be possible to find a “legal arrangement” that would allow the EU to continue to function.

And he stressed that it was important that other countries continued the ratification process regardless of the Irish result.

“There are always ways of finding specific methods of cooperation,” he said. “The most important is that we focus on the development of common policies.”

He stressed that there was no risk of Ireland leaving the EU because of the vote. “You can’t just turn your back on a country like Ireland that has been a member for 35 years.”

Meanwhile, French president Nicolas Sarkozy said that he would await the official results from Ireland before making a comment, but that it would be a joint statement with German chancellor Angela Merkel.

Frenchman Francis Wurtz, head of the GUE/NGL group in the European parliament, pre-empted any official decision and praised the Irish voters for rejecting the text.
 
“Only one referendum was organised out of 27 member states and it resulted in a sanction,” he said.

Bruno Gollnisch, another French MEP, from the Front National, also welcomed the decision.

“On the eve of the French presidency of the EU, Nicolas Sarkozy will have to take this sovereign decision in account,” he said.

“He must make sure that this ‘no’ will be respected, unlike the ‘no’ which was clearly expressed by the French end Dutch three years ago.”

But Joseph Daul, the French leader of the centre-right EPP group in parliament, said he was “disappointed with the ‘no’ vote”.

“But we must accept the decision of the Irish voters, and deal with the consequences,” he said.

France – whose rejection of the EU constitution in 2005 led to the drawing up of the Lisbon treaty voted on by the Irish – will have the tricky job of coping with the fallout if the vote is indeed a ‘no’.

Paris takes over the rotating presidency of the EU in two weeks, and had been expected to oversee the simple ratification of the treaty during its time in charge.

Instead it will have to try to find some way to get round the ‘no’ vote (Jouyet’s “arrangement”) in order for the treaty to come into force in some shape or form as planned on 1 January.

A second vote, as happened in 2001 when the Irish rejected the Nice treaty, or the further revision of the text have both been effectively ruled out.

• Previous article
• Next article