EU Treaty Still Alive Despite Irish ´No´

Barroso said Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen should present ideas on the way forward at a summit in Brussels starting next Thursday.

The European Union's planned Lisbon Treaty is still alive and countries should press ahead with ratifying it despite a "No" vote in Ireland, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said on Friday.

Barroso said Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen should present ideas on the way forward at a summit in Brussels starting next Thursday so that the 27 EU leaders can take "joint decisions" during the two-day meeting.

"The 'No' vote in Ireland has not solved the problems which the Lisbon Treaty is designed to solve.... The European Commission believes that the remaining ratifications should continue to take their course," Barroso told a news conference.

"As far as I understood also from my conversation to Prime Minister Cowen, he also believes that the treaty is not dead. I believe the treaty is alive and we should now try to find a solution," he added, noting that 18 of the EU's 27 states had already endorsed it.

Aimed at strengthening the EU's unwieldy decision-making processes after successive bouts of enlargement, the Lisbon Treaty must be ratified by all member states, and Ireland's rejection puts its future in doubt.

Barroso acknowledged that the "No" campaign had found powerful arguments and said he respected the result even though it represented the votes of a tiny fraction of the bloc's population of nearly half a billion.

"All the member states have exactly, exactly the same dignity, and for me the opinion of Ireland counts as much as the opinion of France," he said.

Slovenia, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, said in statement in Ljubljana it deeply regretted the outcome of the referendum and next week's summit should chart a way forward.

Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, the longest serving EU leader who has been tipped as a contender for the new role president of the European Council of EU leaders under the Lisbon treaty, said it was clear that the text could now not enter into force on Jan. 1, 2009 as planned.