The Irish Lisbon revote: in 9 months, 15 months, or never

Nicolas Sarkozy is going to Dublin for a few hours on Monday. Going by the Elysee website, his agenda for Barack Obama’s visit on Wednesday is far clearer than for his visit to Ireland. On what is ostensibly a listening tour to understand the reasons for Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon treaty, the signals are already strong that he is there to urge a second referendum on the Treaty if Ireland wants to continue participate as an equal with the 26 other EU member states. But the timing of the revote is tricky. Here is the key answer given by him to the Irish Times (responses to written submitted questions) – I said that I wanted to be able to propose a solution or at least a method during the October or December European Council meeting. Why? Not to impose a timetable on anyone, but simply because Europeans need to know on... [read full story]