Yet Another Rerun?

Frank Schnittger talks about the possibilities of a second Irish referendum, on the European Tribune. From an Irish Times poll he cites:

A second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty has a chance of being carried, according to a new Irish Times /TNS mrbi poll which shows a swing to the Yes side since the referendum defeat last June.

The poll shows a change in public attitudes since June with 43 per cent now saying they would vote yes, 39 per cent no and 18 per cent having no opinion.

In the poll, people were asked how they would vote if the Treaty was modified to allow Ireland to retain an EU Commissioner and other Irish concerns on neutrality, abortion and taxation were clarified in special declarations.

If the Irish get everything they want, basically, a small plurality may be willing to vote in favour of Lisbon, although that is far from assured. Lisbon's chances don't really change with this news.

In the current context, the European states are in a slow process of refocusing their priorities for international cooperation, towards greater and more strategic economic coordination. European integration has largely been policy-driven. And Lisbon was not really designed to cope with the fact that policy priorities shift. It was a static solution, with increased flexibility only in a few fields that reflected the priorities we had when Giscard d'Estaing was leading the convention on the now-dead Constitution.

It wasn't worse than what we have now, but it was nowhere near adequate for what we need.

Apparently the Germans are still pushing the Lisbon Treaty, behind the scenes. We saw the same with the dead Constitution. Eventually, they too will learn to refocus.