Goulard also called on Irish politicians to face up to "their responsibilities" by coming up with solutions to the crisis. "We are again witnessing an amalgam where critics say Brussels irritates, that people do not want Europe, when in fact the people responsible for this slip are rather to be found in the national capitals."
"We had a prime minister who said he had not read the treaty, an Irish European commissioner who said the same," she pointed out.
And if Irish voters were being made to believe that the treaty influences Ireland's sovereignty on abortion, defence or tax policy, it is because Irish politicians failed to explain the text properly, which was considered by voters to be too complex.
"These issues were not considered in the treaty," Goulard points out. "We can therefore measure how much the Irish political class failed in its mission to explain [the treaty]."
