BRUSSELS (AFP) — European leaders are anxiously awaiting Thursday's Irish referendum on the bloc's reforming Lisbon Treaty, with the latest opinion polls showing the "no" camp in the ascendant.
"There is no plan B," if the Irish vote down the treaty, EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso has stressed.
That was a sentiment touted in 2005 when French voters, soon followed by their Dutch counterparts, voted down the EU's original constitution, which led to the treaty being drawn up as a more acceptable replacement.
Another EU official put the situation bluntly: "If there is a 'no' vote on Thursday then it's back to the drawing-board."
The European Commission on Friday urged Irish voters to turn out on June 12 for the country's referendum on the bloc's Lisbon Treaty, as an opinion poll in the Irish Times showed the "no" camp ahead for the first time.
The most recently published survey, by the Sunday Business Post, gave the "yes" side a slender three-point lead.
In both cases, the "no" votes were seen rising faster as the number of "don't knows" decreases, a worrying trend for those counting on a high turnout to get the the highly technical, 346-page document ratified.
All 27 EU nations must ratify the wide-ranging treaty if it is to come into effect on January 1, 2009 as planned. So far 15 have completed, or all but completed, that process.
However all EU eyes are on Ireland, the only member state constitutionally bound to put the issue to the kind of plebiscite which torpedoed the original referendum.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, whose country will assume the EU's rotating presidency next month, hopes "everybody will ratify this treaty because I think that is the sensible path."
Getting the Lisbon treaty fully ratified will be France's foremost priority during its six-month presidency.
Many European leaders, like Fillon, have been treading lightly on the Irish referendum issue, warned by Dublin that attempts to exert too much pressure for a "yes" vote could have the opposite effect on their voters.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European parliament speaker Hans-Gert Poettering and Barroso himself went over to the Emerald isle in April to rally support for the treaty.
Since then they have stayed largely on the sidelines, watching as the eurosceptic camp has gradually gained strength.
For British European deputy Andrew Duff they may have soft-pedalled a little too much. "It would be a catastrophe if the "nos" win. There's an awful feeling of deja vu. When there is popular consultation you get populism, nationalism, xenopohobia, all sorts of lies," he complained.
The deja vu feeling comes not just from the French and Dutch votes in 2005, but also from an Irish referendum in 2001 which rejected the EU's Nice Treaty.
If that result were repeated Dublin would be left with a few options, according to Antonio Missiroli, analyst at the European Policy Centre in Brussels: organise a second referendum -- as it did successfully after the 2001 Nice Treaty upset --, obtain some more opt-outs from European policy (as it has already on justice and immigration) or, in extremis, pull out of the EU altogether.
In the event of a "no" vote, the Nice Treaty would continue to operate by default despite being considered inefficient and superannuated in an EU which has since expanded into the former Soviet bloc and almost doubled its member states.
On the other side of the European political fence, eurosceptics throughout the bloc are also crossing their fingers -- with British naysayers to the fore.
Prominent among them is United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) leader and MEP Nigel Farage.
Over the weekend he declared himself "deeply optimistic" of a no vote.
He said the three million eligible Irish were voting on behalf of the hundreds of millions of Europeans elsewhere "who have not had the chance to speak" through a referendum.
A "yes" vote would allow France to turn its attentions to some of the key initiatives which the treaty will introduce, including the sensitive matter of who will become the EU's first president, one of the posts which the treaty creates.
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