France's finance minister has strong hopes that the European Union will soon have another treaty on reforms to replace the Lisbon Treaty rejected by Irish voters last week.
"We will certainly go through an indepth analysis of what took place and what did not take place," French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde told a seminar on Asian integration in South Koera. She said implementing the Lisbon Treaty was "going to be difficult".
Just as the Lisbon treaty was drafted after France and the Netherlands rejected the previous treaty, Ms Lagarde said she was "absolutely certain" there would be another Lisbon or some other agreement on reforms.
"We Europeans believe that it is either all of us or none of us," she said.
Joaquin Almunia, EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner, played down the impact from the vote results on the overall bloc.
Asked on the sidelines of the meeting in South Korea whether the vote results were undermining confidence in the bloc, Mr Almunia said: "No, not at all," without elaborating.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said this morning it was up to Taoiseach Brian Cowen to decide whether or not to apply the "last rites" to the Lisbon Treaty.
Slovenian Finance Minister Andrej Bajuk, whose country holds the rotating presidency, said in an interview today the No vote “is not a welcome development and it's not good news”.
Still, the European Union will find its “own strength” even after the setback for the bloc's international standing, he said.
The treaty was an effort to resurrect EU reforms that were torpedoed by French and Dutch voters in 2005. Ireland was the only country to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Traty.
The treaty envisages a long-term president of the European Council of EU leaders, a stronger foreign policy chief and a mutual defence pact. It was due to take effect on January 1st, but cannot come into force if a single member fails to ratify it.