When Europe’s leaders gather in Brussels on Thursday, they should use the occasion to take a step back and ask: why is the European Union today apparently so unloved? Of course, it would be wrong to exaggerate. In every member state in the EU, more people love it than loathe it. But they do not really understand how it works, and they have forgotten what it is for. They are also worried that it has become too large and too alien.

That is an important part of the message of the Irish referendum, where a clear majority voted to ditch the Lisbon reform treaty, a document that had been unanimously endorsed by all the EU governments. Coming on top of No votes in France and the Netherlands to the previous EU constitutional treaty, it suggests that something serious is afoot.