EU-wide referendum needed to boost democracy

MUCH of the commentary that has followed the no vote has concentrated on the challenge that confronts the Taoiseach Brian Cowen as he faces into a European Council meeting tomorrow.

It is to be hoped that a sense of European solidarity, so frequently referred to during the referendum campaign, will be in evidence when he meets his EU colleagues to discuss the way forward. The EU’s ‘legitimacy’ problems did not begin with the Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty, which is symptomatic of a wider and more enduring problem within the union.

As its areas of competence expand, it is essential that EU institutions are not seen to have “authority without popular consent”.