The Irish rejection of the Nice Treaty taught the EU that it had failed to communicate properly its plans for the future, and to allay fears which were perfectly predictable, the Belgian Prime Minister said in Dublin last night.
Mr Guy Verhofstadt, the current President of the European Council, said the No vote was returned for different reasons. Voters, he said, did not bother to take part in the referendum because the treaty sounded too technical and lacked a clear message. It failed to address these fears in time, "with political solutions that need not stop the European Union in its evolution".
"Voters who did turn up but said No, feared the loss of national sovereignty, feared the risk of Irishmen being mobilised for a European army, and feared the loss of subsidies when poorer countries in the East become a member."
Mr Verhofstadt, who was in Dublin meeting the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, as part of his tour of capitals, in advance of the Laeken European Council next weekend, said he did not want to make the mistake of calling the Irish referendum result a "minor incident".
"Nor will you hear me say the Irish were wrong. Or that we should go on with business as usual. Voters are never wrong. Voters do not usually vote for what was achieved in the past, whatever successes the past stands for. They vote for what is on offer for the future. And it may well be that we failed on that point."
In his address last night to the Institute of European Affairs he said the message from the Irish had been received and understood.
Next week at the Laeken summit a declaration would be made on the future of the Union. "It will not be an exercise in Euro-pep-talk," he said. However, it did not mean the Union would be described as a failure.
"Therefore, we will put up a few questions in the Declaration of Laeken. How to simplify the efficiency of the institutions, how to democratise their structures, how to give national parliaments a role . . . The aim of the Convention is to go back to basics. If we want Europe to push forward, let us first have another look at it on the drawing table."