IRELAND IS being told to change its constitution by EU partners to enable it to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon.
Despite a referendum voting against the Treaty, economic pressures at home are forcing politicians to rethink the issue and bow to pressure from Europe to sign the document before the European elections in 2009.
The idea is that Dublin alters its constitution on the areas that it wants to preserve with regards to national sovereignty and then resubmit it to parliament and ratify the document.
This could solve the current stalemate that the Treaty of Lisbon has reached following Ireland’s decision to reject the treaty in June last year.
Brian Cowen, Prime Minister of Ireland, is under strong pressure from his opposite numbers in Europe, particularly the French who are chairing the six-month rotating EU Presidency, to present a solution for the deadlock at a European leaders’ summit on December 11 and 12.
Most political commentators believe that the Irish premier will tweak the document so that his country can maintain its military neutrality, ban on abortion as well as maintaining the right to veto on all questions of a financial nature as affecting Ireland.
Even with such adjustments, Cowen has already made it clear that his government is not in a state of preparedness to hold a fresh referendum on the issue and changes before October 2009 given the time taken up in the Irish parliament by the current economic crisis.
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