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28th Mar 2024

Italian Lisbon vote builds pressure on Ireland

  • Rome: the founding EU treaty was signed in the Italian capital in 1957 (Photo: EUobserver)

The Italian senate's unanimous support for the Lisbon treaty on Wednesday (23 July) should help force Ireland into a revote, Italian politicians said, with Ireland looking increasingly likely to stand out as the only EU country not to ratify the text.

"If ratification takes place in the other 26 states, in the autumn we will be able to ask Ireland to find a solution which will not block the integration process and go to the European elections with the new rules foreseen in the Lisbon treaty," the senate's foreign affairs committee head, Lamberto Dini, indicated.

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"The challenge [of solving Europe's political problems] will begin on the day when the treaty enters into force and when [EU] countries find out they can no longer rely on the right to veto by one of them," Italian foreign minister and former EU commissioner, Franco Frattini, added.

The remarks came as all 286 Italian senators who turned up for the Lisbon vote on Wednesday afternoon gave their backing to the text, with the Italian lower house also expected to approve the treaty by a large majority when it votes next week.

The Northern League, which had earlier called for a referendum on Lisbon, voted in favour but made a show of supporting separatist European regions by waving flags from the Basque Country, Catalonia, Sardinia, Venice, Liguria and Lombardy during the senate debate.

Twenty out of 27 EU states have definitively ratified the EU treaty despite the Irish No vote in a referendum in June. The Spanish, German and Polish parliaments have also approved the text, which now awaits the signatures of the respective heads of state.

The Swedish parliament is set to pass the treaty without serious opposition when it begins its autumn session in September. And Czech Prime Minister Miroslav Topolanek this week pledged the full support of his divided ODS party when parliament votes in autumn.

Meanwhile, France is pushing Ireland to hold a second vote, with President Nicolas Sarkozy on his visit to Dublin on Monday suggesting that the June 2009 European Parliament elections would be a good time for another referendum on Lisbon.

The EU summit in October will see the next major discussion of the future of the EU treaty, with Irish foreign minister Micheal Martin pledging to give "clarity" on Ireland's plans in December.

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