Op-Ed: Is the EU talking itself to death? Irish vote and some angst from Euro media

The Irish No vote to a European reform bill follows a lot of other negative responses from member countries. So the European media are now talking about the end of the EU. You’d think the world was coming to an end, they way they’re talking about it.

The Daily Telegraph, referring to the various European editorial responses:

The Financial Times offered a similar analysis, (similar to the Times) calling for the treaty to be sidelined until a common response can be agreed among all 27 leaders.

"The No vote was based on a ragbag of reasons to which there is no obvious response. The turnout was respectable. So a second Irish referendum would probably be doomed to failure," the business daily said in an editorial.

The Sun tabloid, which has been pushing for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to hold a referendum on the treaty - currently being debated in the upper House of Lords - ran an editorial headlined "Pluck of the Irish".

"Ireland proved that when given a say, most people don't like the way Europe is run. They've had enough of being lied to, cheated and bullied by remote, unaccountable and faceless politicians and bureaucrats," it said.

If the Sun and the Financial Times can agree about something, surely there must be something to it. The European media were a bit more diverse. They seem to waiver between doom and a rather qualified optimism.

Germany's Die Welt applauded the referendum result. "Why should they have approved a treaty that no-one explained the benefits of?"

"Europe has work to do" in the areas of energy, defence, agricultural policy, education ...

and "for all that there is no need for a treaty but political will," the conservative daily said.

But for the centre-left Sueddeutsche Zeitung, the result was a sign "that the European Union has begun to fall apart".

Spain's centre-left El Pais said Europe is "blocked once again by a new crisis" but the liberal El Mundo suggested the way forward was for the other 26 EU member states to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, forcing Ireland to revise its constitution which requires it to consult voters, or to hold a new referendum.

The European Union isn’t a political entity in many ways. The significance of the EU is its economic and corporate status. That’s doing very nicely, thank you, and the rise of the euro as a very strong currency isn’t hurting anywhere near as much as it was predicted six months ago. That part of Europe is working very well, and varying degrees of bureaucratic stubbed toes won’t make the slightest difference. It’s in nobody’s interest for the EU to “fall apart”, least of all the Europeans. Europe, for the first time in history a coherent entity, would lose a fortune. The revival of the pre-EU situation would be like bringing back the Holy Roman Empire, and about as efficient. The EU national economies, individually, with the exception of France, Germany, and the UK, are midgets. Those three, with Europe, are a lot stronger than they would be without it. Financially, the big European corporations are giants. They’re bigger than some of the member countries. To return to a purely national status, with all the costs involved, would be as ridiculous as it would be expensive. The EU doesn’t even need to be a particularly political entity, except where it’s in the interests of Europe as a whole. It makes more sense as the local bureaucracy than as a “government”, because that’s its working role. This may be the world's first case of regional political hypochondria.