Let us now have the debate on the future of the EU, "pre-Nice", which we were going to be invited to have post-Nice, if we had voted to ratify this treaty.
Post-Nice, the fork in the EU would have been taken, the club of equal partners would have divided into two clubs, and the necessary legal permission to allow Germany and France to hijack the EU for their own purposes and use its institutions to set up a federation/confederation inside the EU, would have been given.
The Irish people have refused permission for that. The Treaty of Nice is dead. It cannot be ratified without Ireland, and the verdict of the Irish people must be respected. Above all, that verdict must be respected by the Irish Government, which should inform its EU partners that the treaty cannot be ratified by Ireland. For other EU states to continue, or to pretend to continue, with the ratification process after one country has rejected it, would be an insult to the people of this country, a violation of EU law and of international law on the ratification of treaties.
Nice was always an unloved thing. Cobbled together in haste, it has been strongly criticised in every EU country. Last week former EU Commission president Jacques Delors called Nice a flop, and said he hoped its institutional proposals would never be enforced. There will be hidden joy in some European chancelleries, and open gratification among countless Europeans, about the Irish decision.
If there are good things in Nice, as there are - perhaps the new statute of the EU Court of Justice, or the proposed new Social Committee - they should be put together in a separate treaty and sent for ratification in the normal way. That would almost certainly not require a constitutional referendum in Ireland as no surrender of State sovereignty would be involved.
Nice is not legally necessary for EU enlargement, even though some countries, Germany and France in particular, regard it as necessary before they would accede to a major enlargement. The Government and its allies have sought to mislead the Irish public on this over the past month. Governments might say Nice was an EU enlargement treaty, but the Referendum Commission did not admit it necessarily agreed. As is recognised widely, the only practical enlargement of the EU that can take place over the next few years is the admission of Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and possibly Malta, if the Maltese say Yes in their referendum, although they are unlikely to.
With Nice rejected, the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty remain in force. They are sufficient to admit the countries mentioned to the EU, once individual accession treaties are concluded. These states could then take part in the grand debate on the EU's future which is supposed to culminate in the Year 2004 treaty adumbrated in Nice on the future of the Union.
In that debate, the proposals of the SOS Democracy Intergroup in the European Parliament for reform of the EU to make it more people friendly and bring it closer to the citizens, have outstanding merit. The National Platform is disseminating these proposals for the information of Irish opinion-formers and media.
It would be foolish of either the Irish or other EU governments to think they can fob off the Irish people with declarations and political promises about the future, and then try to send around the Nice Treaty again without making any change to it. Any change makes it a new treaty. If the Government and its allies embark on such folly, and attempt to put an unchanged treaty before the Irish people again it is certain they will face an even greater rejection.
Anthony Coughlan is secretary of The National Platform research and information group and is Senior Lecturer Emeritus in Social Policy at Trinity College, Dublin.