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# Ireland and Europe at the crossroads
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ireland-and-europe-at-the-crossroads/
- Published: 2008-12-16T20:12:24.000Z
- Updated: 2019-02-14T22:42:29.000Z
- Author: Tom Griffin
- Tags: #en, #Migrated, #Import 2026-04-09 18:49

**Tom Griffin (London,** [**OK**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom)**)**:Over at the main openDemocracy site, John Palmer looks at the stakes as Ireland contemplates a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

*With ratification now* [*virtually*](http://www.euractiv.com/en/future-eu/ratifying-treaty-lisbon/article-170245?ref=opendemocracy.net) *complete in the rest of the EU (the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany* [*apart*](http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2008/1122/1227293433360.html?ref=opendemocracy.net)*), the Irish veto has put the whole* [*process*](http://www.euractiv.com/en/future-eu/constitutional-treaty-key-elements-archived/article-128513?ref=opendemocracy.net) *of reforming the way the union functions into cold storage.* 

Meanwhile, a number of large-scale issues and events have emerged or become more acute since discussions about a new [constitutional treaty](http://europa.eu/institutional%5Freform/index%5Fen.htm?ref=opendemocracy.net) for Europe began - global economic crisis, severe threats of climate change, dangerous regional conflicts, challenging geopolitical shifts, prospects for significant change in United States policy under a new president. All are stretching or will stretch to the limit the capacity of the union to react. 

As Palmer notes, under the charismatic leadership of Declan Ganley (profiled in a recent [RTE documentary](http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/1127/primetime.html?ref=opendemocracy.net)), much of the Irish No campaign is now closely linked to the kind of euro-sceptic circles which may yet come to power in Britain in the next few years.

Ganley celebrated his victory in the first referendum with a [speech](http://www.heritage.org/press/events/ev071508a.cfm?ref=opendemocracy.net) to the Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom in Washington. [Heritage's concerns](http://www.heritage.org/research/europe/bg1803.cfm?ref=opendemocracy.net) about European integration are very different from Ireland's worries about neutrality:

*It is frightening to imagine what would happen to American interests if the supranational imperative extended further into the foreign and security policy realm. For example, if a Common European Foreign and Security Policy had genuinely functioned in 2003, however badly, then Belgium, France, or Greece (all states with strongly anti-American publics) could have vetoed the U.K., Poland, and Italy from aiding America in Iraq*

It seems, ironically, that De Valera's constitution has become the best hope for traditional Atlanticism.