Ireland votes yes to the Lisbon Treaty

I'm pro EU, in fact I think the Lisbon Treaty doesn't go far enough, but I'm delighted the Irish have voted yes in their second referendum. In case you hadn't heard, around a year ago the Irish voted no in a referendum, and after pressure from the other nations in the EU, a second was called. Yesterday the results came through, a resound yes to the Lisbon Treaty.

Essentially this is a win for the EU. For years the mechanisms that make the EU have been bloated, bureaucratic, and inefficient. the Lisbon Treaty is an effort to streamline procedures, and prepare Europe for a future where the EU begins to take on a superstate role, more so than it does at the moment.

As part of the Lisbon Treaty, the EU will get a permanent president and a foreign minister. Both of these roles will be handicapped, the president is symbolic, whilst the foreign minister only acts as spokesperson for the Commission and national governments, but they are important nevertheless.

These new roles also serve a valuable purpose in letting EU citizens know that they are part of something bigger, I guess you could call them motivational roles, and I expect it won't be long after final ratification until we start hearing the first calls for the president to be directly elected.

A directly elected president of the EU would of course have to have a lot more power than Lisbon anticipates, so expect a lot political maneuvering in the coming years as pro EU parties battle it out with others to bring about the next treaty. Interesting times ahead?