The Irish voted against the new EU treaty.
But is it dead? Some of the bureaucrats in Brussels think they will just go ahead. They will try to find ways to make wholesale reductions in national sovereignty of member states, including Ireland, without ever again applying for permission to the nominal sovereigns--the people. Thus do elites overplay their hand.
The peoples of such diverse nations as Greece, Ireland and Germany are well-suited to work together on economic cooperation, but there is no crying need for much more. On defense, a stronger NATO makes more sense.
The Irish vote is especially a liberation for Ireland's neighbor and former nemesis, the U.K. It is hard to believe that the English would ever knowingly give up the ancient rights and powers of Parliament and cede them to what in fact is the world's first true bureaucracy--government by government--in Brussels. Now perhaps the British public can look at the whole European identity more honestly.
The European Community was a great achievement. So is the European Union. But there are limits, and those may have been reached.
