The Irish government is expected to bow to Franco-German pressure and hold a second referendum to try to rescue the Lisbon treaty that voters rejected this month.
The original source: Nicola Smith "Ireland under Franco-German pressure to hold new EU vote"
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Mr Giscard d'Estaing told the Irish Times that Ireland's referendum rejection would not kill the Treaty, despite a legal requirement of unanimity from all the EU's 27 member states.
"We are evolving towards majority voting because if we stay with unanimity, we will do nothing," he said.
Mr Giscard d'Estaing also admitted that, unlike his original Constitutional Treaty, the Lisbon EU Treaty had been carefully crafted to confuse the public.
"What was done in the [Lisbon] Treaty, and deliberately, was to mix everything up. If you look for the passages on institutions, they're in different places, on different pages," he said. "Someone who wanted to understand how the thing worked could with the Constitutional Treaty, but not with this one."
Mr Giscard d'Estaing believes "there is no alternative" to a second Irish vote, a view shared by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President.
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