The grandees of Europe do not give up easily, even though their voters have a troublesome habit of saying "No" on those rare occasions when the question of Europe is put. The Danes, the Swedes, the French, the Dutch and the Irish (twice) have rejected the grand European project.

When the Dutch and the French voted against the draft EU constitution, Europe's leaders repackaged its main components in the form of a treaty in order to sidestep the need for a new referendum. The Irish, however, have their own constitution, which requires any major changes to be put to the popular vote. Theirs was the only referendum, and they have said "No."

That should be the end of the matter. The EU still has a legal and functioning treaty (devised at Nice eight years ago) that seems to be functioning tolerably well. The Germans dislike it because the new treaty would give them greater weight in EU affairs and it means a messy Commission of 27 members, one for each country.

But Europe's leaders appear determined to press ahead with the Lisbon Treaty the Irish have rejected. France's President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a joint statement: "The ratification procedure is already complete in 18 countries. We hope therefore that the other member states will persevere with the ratification process."

The president of the EU Commission, Jose Barroso, declared: "The treaty is not dead. The treaty is alive, and we will try to work to find a solution."

Italian Foreign Affairs Minister Franco Frattini said: "This is a serious blow to European construction," but "the path of European integration must not however be stopped."

So how will they fudge it? The first plan was simple: get the Irish to vote again until they give the right answer. That was what was done the last time the Irish said "No." Some solemn new EU document that asserted Ireland's right to set its own taxes and to maintain its official neutrality would meet some of the Irish complaints.

But Plan A foundered on the Irish government's instincts for survival. Prime Minister Brian Cowen is against a second referendum, fearing punishment by frustrated voters.

So Plan B is to isolate the Irish. The ratification process will continue so that 26 of the EU's 27 member states will be committed. Then they will cobble the key bits of the Lisbon Treaty onto the new accession Treaty that makes Croatia into a full member late next year or in 2010, and get the Irish (without a referendum) to ratify that. Hey, presto, it is fixed.

That is why French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who will take over the rotating EU presidency next month, called the Irish vote a "hiccup" that should "not become a political crisis."

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the key elements of the rejected treaty, like the creation of a permanent EU president and the scrapping of most national vetoes, could be implemented without Ireland. "Ireland for a period of time could leave the way free for the integration of the other 26 member states," he said.

Plan B may well succeed, but at a dangerous cost. Doubtless there were local reasons for all the successive "No" votes in the various countries that held referendums in recent years, but there was a common thread. The European voters are suspicious of their leaders, suspicious of the grand European project, and alarmed the whole EU process seems so remote, so bureaucratic and undemocratic in ignoring or fudging or working around other rejections by referendum.

This issue is acute in Britain, where a referendum on the EU constitution was promised to the voters, but abruptly withdrawn when the constitution morphed into a treaty. On Wednesday Britain's House of Lords is scheduled to give the ratification bill its third reading, which would effectively pass it into law.

"To simply plow ahead on a straight vote to accept or reject the EU (Amendment) Bill is to demonstrate nothing less than a contempt for the democracy on which the European Union is supposed to be founded," commented Lord David Owen, a former British foreign secretary.

But the passionate pro-Europeans do not intend to let the Irish vote derail their project. Richard Corbett, a leading British member of the European Parliament, said: "It is inconceivable that all of the others will simply say 'too bad -- one country has said "No" to the package as it stands, so let's forget reform and stick with the current system for evermore.'"

And the die-hard European federalists have another trick up their sleeve. Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who sees himself as the front-runner to be the EU's first new president under the rejected treaty, told German radio the Irish vote showed it was time to press on with a "Club of the Few" countries most committed to building common EU laws and policies, by which he meant the grand project of a federal Europe.

As one of Ireland's "No" voters asked an RTE radio interviewer: "What part of 'No' don't they understand?"

earlier related report
Analysis: Ireland says 'No' to Lisbon
EU leaders Monday were picking through the wreckage of the body's constitutional reform but failed to come up with an easy fix for the crisis sparked by the Irish "No" vote to the Lisbon Treaty.

The Irish 53.4 percent to 46.6 percent vote against the reform plans has come as a shock for EU leaders and will dominate their week: The body's foreign ministers met Monday in Luxembourg, and the Irish vote will remain on the table for Thursday and Friday at a meeting by EU heads of state and government in Brussels.

The Lisbon Treaty aims to render the EU fit for the future by easing decision-making in a body that with 27 members over the past years has suffered from political fatigue.

But at least on Monday, the shock still prevailed, and officials had no easy solutions for what to do next.

"It's far too early, in our view, to start coming up with solutions," said Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin, seemingly clueless about how to handle the tricky situation, after Ireland became the first country (and probably will remain the only one) to say "No" to the Lisbon reform treaty in a referendum. Eighteen EU member states have already ratified the treaty in parliamentary decisions, which needs unanimous backing to come into force.

It would then do away with exactly that requirement, handing the EU majority voting instead of the tedious unanimity that has slowed down EU policymaking. The treaty would also create a European Council president and boost its foreign policy profile.

Observers say the EU desperately needs to be able to pass legislation more swiftly as asymmetrical threats such as terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons need short-term reactions. Also, the EU should boost its foreign policy and defense profile as Russia and China become bigger players in the global security scheme, and the EU is in danger of falling behind, they say. Past EU security missions have been mastered well but only after intense internal debate over who would provide the necessary troops -- a direct result of the current institutional weakness, critics say.

Yet its future after the Irish "No" is highly uncertain.

"It would be risky to say we are going to bring the treaty back to life when we are facing a blockade," Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel of Slovenia, which currently holds the EU presidency, said ahead of a meeting in Luxembourg, according to the German Web site Spiegel Online.

There are several scenarios about the way ahead:

Repeating the referendum over the same treaty in Ireland seems out of the question, but what could happen is a new referendum on a slightly altered treaty that takes into account Irish worries (although what they are exactly remains a source of debate).

An entirely new treaty is another option, but that would result in a further delay of the reforms and may lead to an even more watered-down solution -- after all, the Lisbon Treaty is only Plan B after the failed EU constitution. A third option would be to have the current legal basis, the so-called Nice Treaty, in place for the next few years, but add extra provisions to it.

In Ireland, remarks by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier created some waves; he had proposed that Ireland "temporarily clear the way" for the rest of the EU to ratify the treaty, seemingly frustrated with the third setback to a reform after French and Dutch voters in 2005 rejected the original EU constitution project.

Monday, however, Steinmeier's spokesman at his regular news conference played down the comments:

"No one wants to exclude another member state against its own wishes from the EU decision-making process," Martin Jaeger said. "But there could be ... scenarios where, for example, a member state under certain circumstances says, 'I am abstaining from taking part in certain decision-making processes.'"

What Jaeger likely referred to is a strategy proposed by Germany and France, the Europe of two speeds, as some have called it. Under this plan, nations willing to back the treaty and further EU integration would join forces, while others have the option to opt out. This has happened to other projects, most notably the euro, which is the main currency in 15 of the 27 member states. But whether Lisbon can repeat that success story is currently in serious doubt.

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