IRELAND'S VOTE in favour of the Lisbon Treaty made international headlines, but many media outlets had already moved on to concentrate on how the treaty may fare as it faces its final hurdles in the Czech Republic and Poland.
In France, Le Journal du Dimancheconcluded: "The financial crisis which floored the Celtic Tiger a year ago got the better of Irish reticence", while Le Mondesummed up the result as a sign of a new Irish humility: "In 2008, Ireland thought she was invulnerable. In 2009, the European Union is once again perceived as a lifebelt".
Le Mondealso alluded to "the Czech obstacle", while Le Figaro's headline proclaimed: "After the Irish vote, the Czech menace".
The referendum was front-page news in Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine. The paper also ran an editorial headed "All Very Democratic" in praise of the vote.
"Not everything that is brewed in Brussels is always viewed as democratic - but in this case there is nothing with which to find fault," it said. "Because the EU made the Irish voters an improved offer after the first vote . . . When the concerns of a people are listened to, then that is highly democratic."
Berlin's Tagesspiegelsuggested that "the Yes from Ireland sounds more like a thankful sigh of a shipwrecked person who has just been rescued from drowning". Yet, "one cannot praise high enough the decision-making ability of the Irish people. They could have punished their unpopular prime minister Brian Cowen and, with him, the EU. That they didn't do this speaks for them."
In an editorial headlined "Danke Dublin!", Austria's Die Pressenewspaper observed that "after the export of bitter but strong beer and gifting every pedestrian zone with a plastic pub, Ireland gave us a chance to think about EU politics and the democratic involvement of citizens. Now their Yes is being viewed as the starting shot for a new Europe."
In Spain, the result made the front pages of El Paisand El Mundo. Headlined "Europe recovers its future" the El Paisarticle said Ireland had voted "not only with a hot heart but with a cool head".
The Washington Postrelegated the story to page 12 and didn't even send a correspondent to Dublin to cover the vote, unlike the New York Times. The Grey Lady managed to fit a few sentences on Ireland's Yes vote in its front-page news digest. Inside, Eric Pfanner described the result as "a stunning about-face" spurred by economic turmoil. "The lopsidedness of the vote . . . reflects both the success of a strong pro-treaty campaign, backed by much of Ireland's business and political establishment, and Ireland's dire economic situation," he wrote. An updated piece - headlined "For Irish, EU May Stand for Economic Unity" - noted that "genuine enthusiasm was hard to find".
A report headlined "Irish throw support behind EU treaty" was the most-read item on the Wall Street Journal's website yesterday. In a recent editorial the Rupert Murdoch-owned paper had accused Yes campaigners of resorting to "patent absurdities" and of peddling "phantom terrors" to frighten people into endorsing the treaty.
A headline on the Financial Timeswebsite said the Yes vote "sets the stage for EU reform" while Croatian newspaper Javnosaid it "opens EU doors for the Balkans".
Jonah Hull, correspondent for Al Jazeera's English language channel, summed up the result thus: "The last time the Irish voted last year the economy was good and they feared a threat to their national sovereignty from a European super-state. Well, this time the country is in deep economic crisis and it appears to have changed its mind."
News website GlobalPost filed news of Ireland's change of mind on Lisbon under the "Dull but important" section of its digest.