Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

And, once more, the plain people of Ireland are called upon to exercise their majestic democratic right to say "Yes" to the Lisbon Treaty. When they had the temerity to say "No" the last time, all kinds of dark scenarios were painted by the outraged Brussels claque. The island would be erased from the map of Europe, or its bonds would be rendered worthless or the country would be isolated. Nothing of the like happened then and nothing of the like will happen of the obdurate Irish again reject this unreadable, unpopular document. Traumatized by the collapse of the country's economy, however, the voters will more than likely say "Tá" today.

But whether the Irish say yes or no today is as immaterial as the treaty they are voting upon. What was drawn up seven years ago already belongs to a lost world. Its aspirations — the EU would overtake the US as the world's leading economic power — are no longer taken seriously, and the visions of its architects — the growing importance of the European Parliament — seem quaint now. As regards the latter, only 40 percent of the EU voters bothered to elect the parliamentarians at the beginning of June, and Germany's constitutional court, in its eagerly-awaited ruling on the treaty at the end of the June, argued that the chronic lack of an opposition suggests that the Brussels body is not a proper parliament, merely an assembly.

The Lisbon Treaty is a pre-crisis concept that no longer fits a post-crisis world. Whether the Irish approve it or reject it today is as irrelevant as their first vote, which is as irrelevant as the treaty itself.