Convoluted Thinking
The convoluted thinking of DANIEL GROS director of the Centre for 
European Policy Studies is shocking in its complete disregard for the democratic process and any legal boundaries.
His suggestion is that the leaders of the member states should sign the consolidated text of the Treaties which results from the incorporation of the amendments of the Lisbon Treaty into the old Treaty which has recently been officially published.
And then treat the consolidated text as an entirely new treaty, Ireland of course would not be able to sign, thus they would be invited to submit a set of protocols, or opt-outs, which would allow it to sign the treaty.
Once that had been done the Irish would then have to offer a new referendum based on the question “Does Ireland wish to join the EU (-26) with the Lisbon Treaty in force?”
GROS argues At this point, another No would effectively mean that Ireland would leave the EU.
Faced with this prospect, it is highly likely that the Irish people would choose to remain in the EU even if this meant accepting the Lisbon Treaty.
Of course the other states would also have to ratify the new treaty but conveniently this would not take much doing, as all they would be doing is re-stating their acceptance of the original treaty, but for some reason Ireland would be ratifying an entirely new treaty!
This of course is a political fudge because all states have a veto on treaty change, and Ireland’s veto would be as effective on the consolidated text because it changes the present treaties.
The question factually would still remain the same does Ireland accept changes to the EU treaty as defined by either Lisbon or the consolidated text of Lisbon, if the people do not then it to cannot be ratified. There are 27 member states not 26 or 25 as Gros would like to suggest and each would still have a veto on treaty change.
