Are Cowan and Brown Trying to Spin a Yes out of Ireland?

It’s a rare sight indeed: Brian Cowen offering a smile at an EU summit.
Biffo, as he is affectionately known back in Ireland, has had an annus horribilis since becoming Taoiseach. At his first EU summit last June he had to explain to his EU counterparts why the public had rejected the Lisbon treaty. He has been put in the bad boys corner ever since.
But at last week’s summit he emerged victorious after doing battle with Gordon Brown, clutching seven pages of legal guarantees and that all so important promise of a protocol.
Britain and a few other countries were concerned that offering Ireland the ability to write their guarantees into the text of the EU treaties at the time of the next accession treaty could reopen the debate in their home countries. The specter of Vaclav Klaus also hung over proceedings. The eurosceptic Czech president says the legal guarantees- without even the protocol- need to be ratified by the Czech parliament. His plan is to delay Lisbon ratification until David Cameron sweeps to power next spring to deal a death blow to the treaty.

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