By Tony Barber in Brussels

European Union leaders will sift through the wreckage of the Lisbon treaty on Monday in search of something to salvage from the bitter blow of Ireland’s rejection of the agreement.

Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, will visit Prague in an attempt to stiffen the Czech government’s resolve to ratify the treaty after Vaclav Klaus, the Czech president, dropped a bombshell by declaring that the Irish referendum last week had buried it for good.

EU foreign ministers meanwhile will convene in Luxembourg to prepare possible ways out of the crisis for the scrutiny of EU heads of state and government, who are to gather at a Brussels summit on Thursday and Friday.

The treaty, almost eight years in preparation, aims to strengthen the EU’s influence in world affairs and improve the bloc’s internal democratic standards by creating a full-time president and boosting the powers of the European and national parliaments.

The Irish “No”, coming three years after French and Dutch voters threw out a constitutional treaty that was Lisbon’s predecessor, dramatised the inability of European leaders to persuade citizens of the benefits of complex documents that most find impossible to understand.

“Citizens are transmitting signals of fear and uncertainty,” Giulio Tremonti, Italy’s finance minister, said at the weekend. “You can say it’s not rational, but we need to react because they are signs of difficulties with the democratic process.”

Among ideas in circulation to overcome the crisis are special treaty protocols or assurances to the Irish on issues such as the right to set their own tax rates. The EU may also review its intention of cutting the 27-member European Commission in size and let each member state keep its own commissioner.

However, such a step could involve renegotiating the text of the Lisbon treaty, something all governments are desperate to avoid. Some are equally wary of proposing that the Irish should hold a second referendum, in the light of last week’s convincing 53.4 to 46.6 per cent victory for the No camp.

Ireland’s rejection was a setback for Mr Sarkozy, who was bursting with ideas for a dynamic, creative EU presidency after France takes over the bloc’s rotating leadership on July 1. He now faces the challenge of managing an old-style crisis over imperilled treaties.

In Prague, Mr Sarkozy will urge the government to ignore the advice of Mr Klaus, whose powers are largely ceremonial but whose presidential signature is necessary for treaties to come into force.

Mr Sarkozy and other EU leaders, who were until recently worried about the impact of the Irish referendum on the UK, appear less concerned now because the Labour government wants the House of Lords to give final British approval to the Lisbon treaty on Wednesday.

Some EU leaders, such as Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg’s prime minister, said at the weekend that the Irish vote should prompt a small group of countries keen on faster integration to go ahead on their own. “Given that it is increasingly hard to get all states moving together, probably the only thing left is a ‘Club of the Few’,” Mr Juncker said.

However, David Miliband, the UK foreign secretary, said a two-tier Europe was not “in our interests or going to happen...It’s a bit messy at the moment, but let’s work our way through it.”

Dublin offered protocols to save accord
By Tony Barber in Luxembourg

Ireland will be offered additional guarantees of its sovereignty – possibly in areas such as taxation, military policy and family law – under an emergency plan to save the European Union’s Lisbon treaty, government ministers and EU officials said on Monday.

They said the plan, still in its early planning stages, would involve no changes to the treaty’s text, because all governments that have approved Lisbon would then have to ratify the altered document – a process regarded as virtually certain to fail, especially in the UK.

The EU was thrown into disarray last week when Irish voters rejected the Lisbon treaty in a referendum that exposed a yawning gap between the aspirations of political leaders for the EU and the suspicions and misunderstandings of the European public.

The treaty aims to strengthen the EU’s ability to act as a united force on the global stage by modernising its institutions and voting procedures. But none of its innovations – such as a full-time president – can come into effect unless all 27 countries approve it.

“What is of the utmost importance is that we’re trying to find a common solution with Ireland, not blaming Ireland, not shaming Ireland, but putting together the elements of a common solution,” Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg’s prime minister, who is the EU’s longest-serving national leader, told the Financial Times.

According to one senior EU government official, the solution will involve an offer of “explanatory protocols” that would state explicitly that Lisbon does not affect Ireland’s power to set its own tax rates, maintain its traditional neutrality and control abortion policy.

Although legal experts say the treaty preserves Irish rights in these matters, the success of the anti-Lisbon referendum campaigners last week was due in large part to voters’ fears that Ireland was ceding control over sensitive policy areas to Brussels.

EU leaders will hold their first substantive discussions on how to rescue the treaty at a summit on Thursday and Friday, and diplomats say the next steps will depend partly on what explanation Brian Cowen, Ireland’s premier, gives his colleagues of why his countrymen voted No.

If he indicates support for the idea of additional protocols for Ireland, it may be possible for a detailed proposal to be presented at a subsequent EU summit in October, a senior EU official said.

One open question is whether the Irish government, having accepted the new protocols, would hold a second referendum.

Mr Juncker, a lifelong supporter of a more closely integrated EU, said that if Ireland found it impossible to ratify Lisbon, some countries should go ahead with deeper political and economic integration using clauses in the EU’s Nice treaty, which came into effect in 2003.

“On the basis of the Nice treaty, we would launch enhanced co-operation in which Ireland would not take part and would not block the others,” Mr Juncker said. “This is the second-best option. The best is to find common ground with the Irish.”

The Nice treaty allows a minimum of eight countries to join forces for specific policies if no other EU member state objects.