Mots sages

Rossa Fanning, Lawyer and Lecturer at University College Dublin makes a good argument in an interview with French daily Libération today:

“It is convenient for Nicolas Sarkozy to call for a second referendum, but it shows that he, like the majority of other European leaders, has not understood the profound reasons for the Irish no vote, nor the concerns that this choice expressed. To twist their arm and try to make them go back on their decision is counter-productive because, in their overwhelming majority, those who voted no do not regret having rejected the treaty. The campaign was intense and the participation massive. Furthermore, this no vote came within the continuity of those expressed three years earlier by the French and the Dutch. Public opinion, in several European countries, is hostile to closer integration. Personally, I regret that as I voted yes. But the EU cannot disrespect the sovereign choice of the Irish people, not without arousing in them a lasting sense of resentment. After the French no vote, nobody asked them to go back on their decision by making them vote again on the same text. But we’ll do it with the Irish just because there are less of them and because this time they are the only ones who have had their say on the treaty through universal suffrage?”