CRITICAL EUROMASS

There is no unity in Europe and none can be expected in the near future. This was proved once again by Ireland's refusal to vote, on 12 June, in favour of the European Union's Treaty of Lisbon which was supposed to replace the defunct European Constitution, which failed in the 2005 referendums in France and the Netherlands.

The reality of this situation was also proved by the two-day summit of EU states and governments held in Brussels on 20-21 June, immediately after the Irish vote.

It must be noted that this decision took the European governments into impasse. The current structure of the EU has ceased to work effectively, due to the arrival of many new members, while reform has suffered successive failure.

Ireland's refusal to support the reformed EU treaty signed in Lisbon in December last year was totally unexpected by the heads of European governments. The document had already been approved by the parliaments of 18 states, while public opinion polls in Ireland, which has made successful use of the benefits of European integration, did not bode ill.

But in this country - the only country in which the ratification of the treaty required citizens' approval in a referendum, the voters said "no". In this way, they consigned the document to the fate of its predecessor - the European Constitution.

The situation at the summit was also complicated by the fact that Irish Prime Minister, Brian Cowen, said that he saw no way out of the impasse.

Indeed, the sensational 54-per-cent Irish rejection of cumbersome European institutions presents supporters of further European integration with an insoluble task.

The approval of the Treaty of Lisbon was also very important because this treaty, apart from creating the post of EU president and a common foreign minister, envisaged the rejection of consensus voting, which requires the consent of all EU members to approve any particular decision.

The consensus was, at the very least, effective when the EU had only 15 members. But further developments have shown that it was impossible always to coordinate the positions of 27 members. The laboriously established system could not support its own weight and collapsed during every attempt to vote on a political or economic issue of importance to the EU. However, in order to implement the more effective "majority principle", unanimous approval from all countries was, once again, required. Unlike in 2005, just one negative vote was enough for the reform to fail.

Now the European Commission may be concerned about drawing up a new document, which is even more modest than the featureless and, as some people called it, "unprincipled" constitution represented by the Treaty of Lisbon. EU heads of state could even decide to organize a repeat vote for Ireland, but they will have to wait some time to do so.

No light at the end of the tunnel

The European press writes that, in any case, the governments of the European Union are ready to secure the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon in the eight remaining states, including in the traditional bastion of "separatism" - Britain - and its new ally, the Czech Republic. "Other countries should continue to ratify the agreement so that the Irish precedent does not turn into a crisis," said Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France, which will take over the presidency of the EU from 1 July.

But European leaders have been no more decisive than that yet. The common mood was expressed by Prime Minister Cowen, who agreed that, for the time being, the process cannot move "forward, backward, outside or inside". France, one of the drivers towards integration, is ready to insist on a repeat vote for Ireland but, according to Secretary of State for European Affairs Jean-Pierre Jouyet, France will not hurry Dublin.

Ireland itself has adopted quite a cool approach towards this idea for the time being. "I do not foresee a situation in which we would be able to put this issue (to a vote) again because, to be honest, there is a risk that (a repeat failure in the referendum) would cause even greater damage to Europe and Ireland," Ireland's Conor Lenihan said in reply to his French counterpart, AFP reports. In any case, Ireland itself has already had a precedent. The so-called Treaty of Nice, signed in 2000, was rejected by the Irish in a referendum in June 2001. But a year later, after the adoption of amendments guaranteeing the country's neutrality, ratification of the document was put to a vote again and finally approved.

Nonetheless, the leaders of the European Union failed to decide at their first summit since the Treaty of Lisbon what they should do about reforms in the EU. Discussion about this critical situation was postponed until autumn, European leaders were critical of each other and European officials decided to solve other issues at the summit in order to soothe the general mood of despair. They agreed to allow Slovakia into the "euro" zone from 2009, imposed more sanctions on Iran and, at the same time, reject sanctions against Cuba in order to spite the USA.

Nevertheless, the principle of unanimous consensus voting will remain in place for at least another four months until Dublin works out ways to overcome the crisis. This means that the internal crisis will also remain in place.

What is more, European leaders did not clarify whether they expect Dublin to draw up its own plan to overcome the crisis or a detailed analysis of the current situation. Ireland itself insists upon the latter: the Prime Minister of the Emerald Isle, Brian Cowen, has asked for "the time required to analyze the results of the vote and study the existing possibilities" for further headway.

Experts believe that the European Union has two obvious ways of overcoming the crisis. The first is called "two-speed Europe" and implies that some member states go for further integration, while others remain inside the EU, but reject further integration. The second way is to freeze the reforms until a consensus option for the new basic treaty is drawn up.

The press reports that Germany was a fierce opponent of the first option at the summit. German Chancellor Angela Merkel insists that if they have decided to move forward, then everyone should do so. "We must ensure that European treaties are adopted and promoted unanimously. There is no other way," she said.

Her Italian counterpart, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, is far from being thus inspired. He confessed that the European idea or, to be more precise, those who promote it, disappoint him. "I see that Europe has taken a step back compared to two years ago." The current leaders of Europe are 'smaller personalities'," Berlusconi said, recalling the time of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac.

"The Reform Treaty" or the Treaty of Lisbon, which was signed by EU leaders in the Portuguese capital in December 2007, has already been ratified by 19 of the 27 member states: Austria, Britain, Bulgaria, Greece, Lithuania, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, France, Romania, Germany, Slovakia, Slovenia, Denmark, Hungary, Finland and Estonia.

But, apart from Ireland, there are also other "weak links", specifically the Czech Republic and Poland, where "Euro-sceptic presidents are creating difficulties", according to the European media. For example, Czech President Vaclav Klaus regards the negative outcome of the Irish referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon as "the victory of democracy and reason over European bureaucracy".

Experts maintain that many residents of the Emerald Isle, i.e. Ireland, are not happy that, according to the Treaty of Lisbon, EU legislation will dominate their national legislation, or that the possible strengthening of the military component of the EU may pose a threat to Ireland's policy of state neutrality.

Awkward  vessel

The further expansion of the European Union has created, and continues to create difficulties for the institution. In essence, it is difficult to expect individual nations and peoples of sovereign states to relinquish their full sovereignty at a stroke. The establishment of supranational decision-making institutions which may not coincide with the sympathies of individual states is opposed in many countries. It is not hard to understand this: if anyone believes that democratic Europe has left behind such an "archaic" idea as nationalism, they are deeply mistaken. The issues of national and, often, religious affiliation, traditionalism and national conservatism still play important roles for European peoples. Those who have visited Europe can confirm this. Besides, individual states have traditionally adopted different approaches to key issues of domestic and foreign policy.

Unlike the United States, which was established by Anglo-Saxon immigrants and was united as a result of a bloody war, or Russia, where the current regions of the federation were brought under a single banner by force quite some time ago, the European nations have never experienced anything like that in their history. The history of individual European countries goes back many centuries. And it is quite difficult to replace a sovereign approach by the historically "young" principles of democracy and cosmopolitanism: genetic memory is an obstinate factor and it takes hundreds of years to form. "National rivalry" still exists in Europe at all levels -from sports to the economy.

Experts say that it is exactly the desire of EU "pioneers" to expand the union without taking account of many of the above-mentioned principles which has created this divided entity. Traditionalist and conservative Europe have found it difficult to "digest" the growing domination of the United States, which has begun to play a key role in Europe itself. This was felt especially acutely after the break-up of the USSR. Unity and the creation of a clear and strong counterbalance could be one response. However, as we can see, this ambition provided the initial spur, but did not become and, a priori, could not become the ultimate factor to unite the European states. The European Union has been created de jure, but de facto it represents not a line of states marching shoulder to shoulder, but a disunited "crowd" of states, all trying to elbow their way into the first row.

We can agree in some part with the Italian prime minister. Unification should be based on an idea, but strong personalities are necessary to lead to it. It would be better led by one personality. However, the latter is unlikely to appear in Europe in the short-term.

This is why the situation will remain the same for the next few years, especially if the EU fails to create a single systemic, supranational treaty or an administrative institution, clearly welcomed by everyone without exception. In the current situation of "Push-Me-Pull-You", we will have to wait for many years for the final shape of the EU to emerge …