The Irish are not for sale (2)

To come into effect, the Lisbon Treaty must be ratified by all 27 EU member states before the end of 2008. Now that the Irish have voted against the implementation of the Treaty it should be declared "dead in the water" in its current guise and by all parties.

Sadly, this is not the case and there are those who continue to declare that the remaining 26 member states (of which none have been permitted a referendum) should press ahead with the reforms. The last time Ireland failed to vote "the correct way", (Nice Treaty, June 2001) an analysis was performed to find out exactly why they had decided against the presented text. The Nice Treaty was accordingly amended to resolve the impasse and another referendum was held for the Irish, this time passing.

Albeit there are some politicians who are threatening to move ahead without Ireland, this is not possible as the treaty requires all 27 states to ratify it. Therefore the most logical and democratic course of action will be for the analysis phase to begin; find out what the Irish are not content with and see if this can be rectified.

The French demanded various modifications to the original Constitutional Treaty before they would agree to its new format as the Lisbon Treaty. Perhaps now is a good time for Malta to also look at what may be amended in addition to the "one extra seat in the European Parliament". I personally fail to understand exactly why this is considered to be of such high value to the country as a whole.

I would suggest that our elected representatives look towards receiving some form of physical assistance in solving the illegal immigration problems we suffer as the soft underbelly of Europe. I do not mean a pledge for some EU financial assistance package, more that the EU recognises that Malta is simply too small to deal with this influx alone. With an area of 316km2 and a population in excess of 400,000 we cannot continue to remain in the front line of European defence without backup and assistance. Our partners in Europe must shoulder the responsibilities we bear for them.

Of course, we could ask all arrivals from Africa which European airport they would like to be delivered to.