Ireland delivers stunning blow to Europe's leaders

The long campaign to forge a new dispensation for the European Union descended into panic and uncertainty yesterday when Ireland turned its back on its 26 EU partners and voted down the Lisbon Treaty.

EU leaders in Brussels and governments across the union, particularly Germany and France, were stunned by the Irish verdict, which amounted to a huge vote of no confidence in the way the EU is run.

The referendum in Ireland was the sole popular vote in the EU on the grand plan to give Europe a sitting president and foreign minister, and reconfigure the way the EU is governed. The result left the project severely wounded, perhaps fatally.

The Irish voted by a 7% margin, 53.6 to 46.4, against the treaty, which has already been ratified by 18 EU countries and is expected to be endorsed by the other eight.

The result left Europe's leaders with a giant dilemma over what to do next. A summit next week in Brussels was originally planned as a celebration. The Irish result is particularly painful for Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, who masterminded the new treaty last year, and for the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who was relishing the central role of ushering in a new European era over the next six months of France's EU presidency.

Berlin and Paris moved swiftly last night to try to limit the damage, pressing Downing Street, according to sources in Brussels, not to make matters worse by abandoning Britain's ratification of the treaty, now in its final stages in the Lords.

Merkel and Sarkozy issued a joint statement, urging all other EU countries to ratify the document and declaring that the reforms envisaged by the treaty remained essential. Gordon Brown was said to have reassured both governments that he had no intention of scrapping ratification.

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