Lisbon fallout overstated

FEARS of the consequences of saying no to the Lisbon treaty may be overdone — even for our agriculture sector, which more than any other depends on EU decision making in Brussels.

After all, the Danes voted against the Maastricht treaty in 1992, we turned down the Nice Treaty in 2001, and the French and Dutch rejected Lisbon’s predecessor, the European Union constitution, in 2005.

French Minister for European Affairs, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, had said before the referendum that if the Irish voted no, France, as incoming EU presidency holder, would “go back to the point of departure… the sound base that allows us to govern Europe effectively.”